FIA stewards were forced to cancel the start procedure for the 24-lap sprint race at the Red Bull Ring circuit when Alfa Romeo driver Guanyu Zhou lost power and his car stalled at the final corner. when heading to the grill.
Because of this, the start was aborted and the drivers had to do an extra formation lap, which in turn allowed the Chinese to restart his car and rejoin the rear of the grid, reducing the race distance to the sprint of 24 to 23 turns.
As soon as the checkered flag was displayed, the FIA issued a statement informing seven drivers on the grid that they had to testify to the stewards for their radio communications with their teams during the additional formation lap.
Mick Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, Esteban Ocon, Daniel Ricciardo, Sergio Pérez, Lance Stroll and George Russell were the drivers cited for an alleged infringement of article 33.1 of the sporting regulations following a report issued by Race Director Niels Wittich .
This article states that drivers “must drive the car alone and without any assistance”, and has been used to prevent engineers from giving drivers too much information over the radio.
However, the stewards have decided not to penalize the seven drivers after meeting with their respective team managers on Saturday after the sprint race.
“The stewards met with all the team principals concerned and determined that the messages being investigated were fully permissible,” the FIA statement said.
This means that the results of Saturday’s sprint race at the 2022 Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix are now final and valid for forming the starting grid for Sunday’s race in Spielberg this Sunday.
