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Lewis Hamilton was one of two Formula 1 drivers given a telling-off by the Japanese Grand Prixstewards for ignoring an instruction given by the race director. Lance Stroll was the other racer who got on the wrong side of race control at Suzuka.
The second practice session of the weekend on Friday was incident-hit with no fewer than four stoppages. The red flags first flew when Jack Doohan crashed at 185mph, destroying his Alpine car and leading to an extensive clean-up operation on track which caused a delay of more than 20 minutes.
Practice was halted again not long after, but for a much more brief period when Fernando Alonsowent off track and got his Aston Martin stuck in the gravel. And the other top stoppages late on came when high winds blew sparks from the cars onto the grass at the side of the track, which then caught fire.
At each re-start, cars came out of their garages to line up at the end of the pit lane, ready to get back on track as soon as they were allowed to. But both Hamilton and Stroll were found to have ignored the race director’s instructions on how drivers should approach such a situation.
In his event notes, race director Rui Marques specifically pointed out that “any car(s) driven to the end of the pit lane prior to the start or re-start of a free practice session [or] qualifying session must form up in a line in the fast lane and leave in the order they got there”.
They were each found guilty of breaching Article 12.2.1 of the International Sporting Code and failing to comply with the race directors’ instructions. But neither will face either a financial or sporting penalty for their actions as the stewards chose instead to hand both drivers and their respective teams a formal warning.
