For a long time, the FIA has insisted drivers not to go too slow in the warm-up laps in qualifying, something that is a problem for those who are in their fast lane, and can find themselves with cars almost stopped in the middle of the race. circuit.
Going over 300 km/h on the lap that defines your starting position in the race and running into a car that destroys all your options is, in addition to something that everyone wants to avoid, a danger, as could happen in blind corners, like the ones in Jeddah.
The other variant is to go too slowly to make the most of the time, as happens in Monza, a place where nobody wants to slipstream others and where they want to set the lap in the final moments.
This became very visible at the 2019 Italian Grand Prix, when only Carlos Sainz crossed the finish line before the checkered flag fell, leaving the rest unable to make their lap.
In the last Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix, race management had to pay close attention to this, and that is, according to The Race , up to 18 drivers received warnings for not complying with the stipulated maximum delta time of 1 minute and 31 seconds out of the pitlane.
In total, all these cars accumulated 55 warnings , and the stewards confirmed that the majority of the warnings were issued because the drivers were respecting each other, that is, creating gaps before reaching the last chicane and having the distance to make clean turns.
Seeing how they slowed down the pace, the FIA did not hesitate to inform the teams that they were committing infringements on a continuous basis, and it seems that Haas was the one who accused this issue the most.
His pair of starting drivers, Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher, after qualifying, in which they reached Q3 with their two cars for the first time since the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix, were called to the stewards to testify, but they got rid of a possible penalty.
As The Race indicates, the direction of the race focused on the American team because they were the closest in the pitlane with respect to the start of the track, so they would have been the ones who would slow down the rest of the single-seaters.
“The drivers went over their delta time following these two cars,” the stewards said. “The new infringements will lead to increased penalties, not only for these two drivers, but for all those who do not comply in the future.”
