Niels Wittich , one of the new race directors for the 2022 Formula 1 season, warned teams ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix that they would not ask drivers to return position after gaining a lead by going off the track.
Instead, it will be up to the teams and drivers to make this decision for themselves, within one full lap of the incident.
This situation did not arise at the Bahrain GP itself. However, in Jeddah, Zhou went off track early in the race after overtaking Alex Albon.
The Chinese driver lost quite a few positions at the start, after the contact he had with Daniel Ricciardo activated his car’s anti-stall system.
While trying to make up positions, he passed Albon before Turn 1, before crossing the inside of Turn 2. Zhou immediately asked his engineer if he should return position, and after quickly reviewing video of the incident, the team decided he should keep it.
However, shortly after, and to the surprise of the team, a message appeared on the screens indicating that the incident was under investigation, and inevitably a standard five-second penalty was applied.
The stewards noted that, by breaking through after overtaking Albon, Zhou had “gained a lasting lead and stayed ahead of car 23. The lead was not nullified by giving the position back at the first available opportunity or at all”.
Zhou’s race was made even worse because the mechanic responsible for the front jack touched the car while the driver was serving the time penalty, before the tires were changed, voiding it.
As a result, the penalty was deemed not to have been served, and Zhou was informed that he had to serve an extra drive through penalty on his way to an 11th-place finish.
“He had a good start, but he had contact with Ricciardo at Turn 1,” Alfa Romeo principal Fred Vasseur told Motorsport.com when asked about Zhou’s busy night.
“And then the anti-stall system came in, and he was 20th, five seconds behind everyone. Then I think he had a very, very strong race, because he came back from where he was to 13th.”
“I don’t agree with the stewards’ decision on Albon, because he was miles away. [Zhou] overtook Albon well before the braking point, and he went straight. And he slowed down to avoid getting an advantage.”
“Zhou asked us, so we took a look at the video. And he passed him and Albon was almost behind him. And then we were like, ‘No, no, it’s fair, it’s fine.'”
Vasseur also had a few words for the stewards’ decision: “It’s fine, if they’re consistent, and it’s always like that, it’s always like that.”
“But we’ll remind him next time. It’s not like he went straight past Albon. He passed Albon and then he went straight.”
Vasseur later admitted that the mix-up at the pit stop, in which the front jack man tried to lift the car and then backed out and the reserve jack mechanic had to intervene, was due to a miscommunication.
“We made that mistake because the mechanic had a problem with the radio, and he touched the car during the pit stop,” explained Vasseur.
“And then Zhou had to drive through. And even with all this mess he was able to get back to 11th, and not too far behind Lewis [Hamilton], and ninth and 10th. I’m very happy with the pace of both of them.” cars, but that’s how it is.
