Mercedes fined by stewards for parc ferme breach

40

The Mercedes team has been fined 10,000 euros after being summoned to meet with the FIA race stewards at the Spanish Grand Prix, following reports that team personnel had broken the rules over parc ferme procedure.

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished the race in second and third place and duly returned to parc ferme where they were interviewed by Nico Rosberg on behalf of the media before the podium presentation.

But officials noted that there had been a breach of sporting regulations by the physiotherapists for both drivers and for non-compliance with the race director's post-race procedures.

Read also: Easy win for Verstappen in Spain over Hamilton and Russell

According to the rules, the physios were supposed to wait outside the cool down room behind the podium until the ceremony has been completed.

Nobody is supposed to be in the designated parc ferme area once the cars arrive back except for team mechanics, officials and FIA pre-approved TV crews and photographers.

There was a similar breach last year at the Austrian Grand Prix, with Mercedes one of the teams involved on that occasion as well.

They received a suspended 10,000 euro fine on that occasion, which means that an actual penalty was levied this time for a repeat offence.

However the sanction was a financial one on the team only and not a sporting penalty on the driver, meaning that neither Hamilton nor Russell faced a loss of position or points as a result of the incident.

In the race, Russell had been lucky not to be penalised for taking to the escape road on the opening lap, which enabled him to bypass traffic and make up five places.

"George managed to get away with running off track, not getting a penalty from that," Red Bull boss Christian Horner complained to Sky Sports F1 after the finish.

And Russell also escaped with just a formal warning after a dangerous incident in Saturday's qualifying session that saw him make contact with team mate Hamilton in turn 1 towards the end of Q2.

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

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.