Giedo van der Garde has been handed a five-place grid penalty for the British Grand Prix after the stewards deemed him to have ignored blue flags.
The Caterham driver had already been given a stop/go penalty for colliding with Mark Webber who was coming up to lap the Dutchman.
The stewards then found he held up Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg for a full lap, despite being shown the blue warning flags, which indicate a driver must move aside to let those behind past.
“Car 21 [Van der Garde] was given blue flags for a full lap. Car 11 [Hulkenberg] had to use DRS and full KERS in order to overtake a lapped car,” read the steward’s statement.
He will therefore start five places lower than he qualifies at the British GP in three weeks time.
Meanwhile, Caterham were fined €2,000 (£1,700) after an employee ran across the pitlane in front of Daniel Ricciardo, though the stewards didn’t deem the incident dangerous enough to warrant a more severe penalty.
“Although the arriving car was not impeded there was the potential for the team member to be injured.”
