• British GP - FP1

Rosberg and Ricciardo escape FP1 red flag penalties

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Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo have both been cleared after overtaking other cars during the red flag period of Friday's opening practice session at Silverstone.

Rosberg passed Daniil Kvyat, while Ricciardo overtook Fernando Alonso, after Felipe Massa's crash on the exit of Stowe brought out the red flags. Both drivers were brought to see the stewards in the time between FP1 and FP2.

In the instance of Rosberg, it appeared Kvyat slowed dramatically coming into Stowe, where Massa's stricken Williams was, prompting the championship leader to pass down the inside. Rosberg explained this was due to the way Kvyat slowed so quickly.

Rosberg said: "The thing was that for me [Kvyat] was pulling off the track, he went off line and slowed right down to 38km/h, which is more or less stopping. For me that looked like he had a problem and when a person does have a problem you are allowed to very slowly move on and that's what I did."

The stewards later confirmed they were satisfied with Rosberg's explanation.

"Having reviewed data from several cars in the same area of the track, several angles of video and having spoken to the driver concerned, the stewards determined that: the driver of car 6 had driven the lap fully within the regulations and was travelling at a safe and reasonable speed throughout; that at the moment of the overtake, car 26 pulled fully off line and slowed to as low as 38km/h in what appeared to be a very unusual manner, in an area of the track that was visibly completely clear; and that the driver of car 6 took reasonable avoiding action of a car, that the stewards accept he reasonably believed to be in difficulty."

In Ricciardo's case, he appeared to overtake less than a second after the red flags had come out, and himself said: "We went into the stewards and analysed it, it was a long way from the accident itself - it was just a case of closing speeds and what not. Nice to obviously not received anything and I won't do it again!"

The stewards confirmed they would take no action, because: "The pass occurred within tenths of a second of the red flag signal; that car 3 was approaching a car that was travelling significantly slower even before the red flag was displayed and therefore at the moment of the red flag the driver of car 3 was concerned with safely passing car 14; and that having seen the red flag indication on his steering wheel and on the track that he then took all reasonable actions to comply with the regulations and proceed in a safe manner."

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