Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Kvyat calls engine penalties ‘ridiculous’

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Daniil Kvyat says the current engine penalties in F1 are “ridiculous” and wants them to be changed next season.

Both Red Bull drivers were hit with penalties for using a sixth power unit in the Austrian Grand Prix, resulting in an automatic ten place grid penalty. While Kvyat was able to use the whole penalty, team-mate Daniel Ricciardo received a five second time penalty in the race having not qualified high enough on the grid.

With the penalties due to a lack of reliability from Renault, Kvyat says it makes no sense to him for drivers and teams to be penalised having already been hit by misfortune.

“I always found this rule a bit ridiculous, to be honest,” Kvyat said. “I think Formula One first of all is a sport, and I don’t know in any other sport where you get an injury and you have to start even further backwards. Let’s say a sprinter gets an injury and then in the 100 metre sprint you have to start 50 metres further back. I don’t think that would be really fair.

“The rules are what they are, and hopefully they will realise that it’s not really right and hopefully for next year they will correct this.”

Both McLaren drivers were hit with 25-place grid penalties in Austria as a result of the current regulations.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.