Mercedes cleared over pit stop infraction as ‘nearly all teams in breach’ · RaceFans

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Mercedes will face no penalty regardless of the stewards discovering some staff personnel didn’t put on required protecting gear whereas attending to Lewis Hamilton’s automobile within the pits.

The stewards discovered nearly each different staff had dedicated the same infraction and determined punishing all of them “wouldn’t serve a helpful objective.”

The infringement occured when Hamilton got here into the pits throughout SQ2. “The stewards heard from the staff consultant and reviewed video proof and decided that staff personnel carried out work on automobile 44 [Hamilton’s] entrance wing whereas it was in its pit cease place through the dash qualifying session, and weren’t sporting the required protecting gear.”

This was in breach of F1’s rules which specify what sort of helmets the pit crew should put on, and in addition state that “the usage of applicable eye safety is obligatory.”

“Nevertheless, as we had been inspecting the conduct of the staff in relation to this infringement (which was reported to us by race management), it got here to our consideration that numerous different groups had engaged in comparable work with out helmets and/or with out eye safety through the session both inside the pit cease place or in shut proximity to it,” the stewards famous.

“Definitely, those who had been engaged on the automobile inside the pit cease positions would even have been in breach of Article 34.13 (for instance by touching the automobile or jacking up the automobile). Certainly, these barely exterior of their pit cease place could not been in breach of the above article however the distinction, from a security perspective (which is the probably objective for this rule), was not apparent to us.

“Moreover, it seems to be the established follow to jack the automobile up, whereas blowers are used to chill the brakes, inside the pit cease place to carry the automobile again into the storage. That too, learn strictly, may very well be in breach of the above rules. So, in these circumstances, penalising one staff, the place all or almost all of the groups could probably have been in breach of this text in some kind or the opposite wouldn’t serve a helpful objective.”

The stewards subsequently took no motion towards Mercedes or another staff for this breach, however urged the FIA to “contemplate whether or not modifications have to be made to both the present practices throughout qualifying/dprint qualifying or the rules themselves.”

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