Hamilton, Verstappen and Hulkenberg avoid penalties over qualifying incidents

Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg avoided penalties after the drivers were investigated for four separate incidents in qualifying.

However Mercedes were fined for unsafely releasing Hamilton from the pits and Haas were reprimanded for sending Hulkenberg’s car into the fast lane at the wrong time.

The stewards took no action against Verstappen after looking into whether he drove unnecessarily slowly when he left the pits at the end of Q3.

They noted Verstappen created a gap of 14 seconds to the car in front of him at this point. However “in this case no other car was directly affected by this in their attempts to set a lap time,” they noted, and “other cars were making similar gaps on track at this point in time.”

While Verstappen was cleared, the stewards suggested introducing a new rule limiting how large a gap drivers should be allowed to create. They are already bound by limits on how slowly they may drive between the two Safety Car lines, which has led drivers to slow in the pits to create gaps between them and other cars so their qualifying laps are not affected by traffic.

Hamilton’s Mercedes team was fined €5,000 for releasing his car in an unsafe condition from the pitlane during qualifying. He dragged a jack and exhaust extractor into the pits as he left at the start of Q3.

Although Hamilton was told to “stop” initially by race engineer Peter Bonnington, he was encouraged to continue on his way once the team realised that his car was safe to proceed. The stewards noted “the team immediately informed the driver to stop to prevent any further damage and/or dangerous situation.”

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg was also summoned over two separate incidents of failing to follow race director Niels Wittich’s instructions for how cars can join the fast lane in the pit lane when exiting their garages.

Wittich’s race directors notes points to article 34.8 of Formula 1’s sporting regulations, which state that “any car(s) driven to the end of the pit lane prior to the start or restart of a free practice session, qualifying session or sprint qualifying session must form up in a line in the fast lane and leave in the order they got there.”

It adds: “a car will be considered to be ‘in the fast lane’ when a tyre has crossed the solid white line separating the fast lane from the inner lane, in this context crossing means that all of a tyre should be beyond the far side, with respect to the garages, of the line separating the fast lane from the inner lane.”

Haas were reprimanded for directing Hulkenberg to merge into the queue ahead of Daniel Ricciardo during Q1. However the stewards took no action over a second incident between Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez in Q2. In this case they ruled “at the time car 27 [Hulkenberg] entered the fast lane there was no suitable gap to blend in.

“However, this was caused by another car stopping right in front of car 27 at the moment the driver wanted to do so. The stewards conclude that the driver started to merge into the fast lane anticipating that there would be a suitable gap but this was prevented by the other car stopping at exactly this moment.”

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2024 Austrian Grand Prix

• Austrian GP clash will have taught Norris how to race Verstappen – Ricciardo
• Verstappen was “lucky” tyre damage didn’t force him to retire like Norris
• Pirelli introducing new C6 tyre to improve racing on street tracks next year
• Norris admits ‘overreacting’ but queries why Verstappen avoided track limits penalty
• Norris and Verstappen’s Austrian GP collision “blown out of proportion” – rivals

Browse all 2024 Austrian Grand Prix articles