Daniel Ricciardo has been slapped with a three-place grid penalty for his home race in Australia this weekend after transgressing during a red flag period in practice.
Ricciardo was on his low-fuel lap on Ultrasoft tyres when the session was suspended due to the presence of a loose timing wire on the pit straight.
As per protocol, Ricciardo returned to the pit lane, but stewards deemed that he did not stay above the minimum time set by the FIA ECU.
Stewards explained that while Ricciardo failed to adhere to the regulations, he “slowed significantly such that no danger was created”, meaning a “lesser penalty” was imposed.
Ricciardo was also issued with two penalty points.
Full Stewards' reasoning:
"The Stewards examined telemetry, video, car positioning data evidence and heard from Daniel Ricciardo, the driver of car 3 and the team representative. The Stewards reviewed the data and video and found that Ricciardo did in fact fail to stay above the minimum time set by the FIA ECU in the penultimate and final mini marshalling sectors. The Stewards also found that Ricciardo slowed by as much as 175kmph from his fast times at Turn 12 and was consistently and significantly slower in the final three turns, indicating that he was fully complying with the requirements of Appendix H of the International Sporting Code. However, he admitted an error in reading his dash and was slightly below the minimum time. As the regulation states, Article. 31.6 was added this year to ensure that drivers reduce speed sufficiently during a red flag. Breach of this regulation is seen to be an extremely serious matter. However, in this case, the Stewards thoroughly reviewed the breach and found that the driver slowed significantly, such that no danger was created, and that the driver proceeded with due care. The Stewards therefore are imposing a lesser penalty than usual, and impose a three grid place penalty and two penalty points.
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