Massa, Magnussen escape penalty for quali infringements

Williams’ Felipe Massa and Renault’s Kevin Magnussen have both been handed reprimands at the Japanese Grand Prix following the pair’s infringements during qualifying.

The Brazilian and Dane had to visit the Suzuka stewards for being too slow returning to the pits during the session. The FIA sets a maximum permitted time between the Safety Car lines on pit exit and pit entry to make sure drivers do not circulate too slowly on track when not on a hot lap.

F1’s governing body set the maximum permitted time between the two Safety Car lines at 1min57s, but both drivers exceeded that time, at the end of Q1 for Magnussen and the conclusion of Q2 for Massa.

However, the stewards rules that “as no driver was impeded, [we] consider a reprimand to be sufficient in this case.” This is Massa and Magnussen’s first reprimand of the season. The Williams driver qualified 12th, while the Renault man will line up 18th on Sunday’s grid at Suzuka.

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