• European Grand Prix

Nine drivers hit with five-second penalties

ESPNF1 Staff
June 27, 2010 « Schumacher seeks rules clarification | »
Nine drivers exceeded the target lap time under the safety car © Getty Images
Enlarge

The stewards have slapped five-second penalties onto the finishing times of nine Formula One drivers at the European Grand Prix for lapping too quickly under safety car conditions.

Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello, Nico Hulkenberg, Robert Kubica, Vitaly Petrov, Adrian Sutil, Sebastien Buemi, Pedro de la Rosa and Tonio Liuzzi were all handed penalties, but the finishing positions barely changed as a result.

Fernando Alonso moves up one place to eighth ahead of Buemi and de la Rosa is knocked out of the points as Nico Rosberg is promoted to tenth. The rest of the points-scoring positions remain unchanged. Liuzzi drops from the non-scoring 13th to 16th.

Drivers are given a target time that they must not exceed when the pace car is deployed, so that they do not race at full speed back to the pits while marshals are on the track.

Virgin's Timo Glock was hit with a 20-second penalty for ignoring blue flags in a separate incident.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
ESPN Staff Close