Williams breaches tyre use rules again - by three seconds!

Felipe Massa, Williams F1, United States Grand Prix

The Williams F1 team has been reprimanded after being found in breach of Formula 1's strict tyre rules for the second time this season.

In August, the team received a 10,000 euro fine after failing to return a set of practice tyres on schedule during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend.

Teams get an extra set of tyres to use in the first 40 minutes of free practice 1 on Friday mornings. However, Williams didn't hand the set back in time at Spa, claiming they had been confused by the timing of a red flag.

They were caught out for a second time on Friday at Austin, when they were again late in returning a first set of tyres.

"The driver Felipe Massa, car number 19, used the set of dry-weather tyres, which the competitor nominated prior the start of P1 for use during the first 40 minutes of P1 only, until 10:40:03, three seconds after the first 40 minutes of P1," said a report filed by the FIA's technical delegate jo Bauer.

Hamilton sets the pace early in damp FP1 in Austin

A statement from the race stewards agreed that this had been breach of Article 24.4 g) ii) of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations.

The team was reprimanded and handed another 10,000 euro fine. However, this fine was suspended because Williams had only missed returning the tyres by three seconds.

"Although this is a breach of the regulations (the second of this type by the team this year), the offence occurred only 3 seconds after the cut off time, hence the suspension of the fine," said the official notice.

The breach does not result in any penalties for Massa for the race.

On the other side of the Williams garage, Lance Stroll has a brand new race engineer for the week.

His usual race engineer James Urwin is on maternity leave, so former Ferrari chief engineer Luca Baldisserri has stepped in.

The Italian first partnered Stroll in 2016 when he won the FIA European Formula 3 Championship with Prema Powerteam.

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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.