The F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Steward has ruled that McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo will be penalized for three-grid demotion following the official qualifying on March 26, alleging that he interfered with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon.
Ricardo missed 12th place in qualifying and advanced to Q3, but was under deliberation for disturbing Ocon’s flying lap at the start of Q2.
After hearing from both drivers and team representatives and verifying the video and radio content, Steward determined that Ricardo “unnecessarily interfered” with Ocon’s driving and went to Article 37, Paragraph 5 of the F1 Sporting Regulations. I admitted that there was a violation of.
According to Steward, Ricardo was not informed by the team that Ocon was approaching from behind. Ocon also admitted that while he was forced to cancel the lap, the “overall performance” of the Q2 session itself was not compromised.
However, Steward imposes a three-grid demotion penalty and one penalty point (cumulative one) on Ricardo, saying that the situation is “irrelevant” to the presence or absence of violations, and costs 10,000 euros for McLaren who neglected to alert. He was fined (regarding 1.34 million yen).
14th place Mick Schumacher misses the final following a crashAs a result, Ricardo’s demotion is expected to move Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo) to 12th, Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) to 13th, and Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) to 14th.
Sergio Perez (Red Bull) was in pole position, Charles Leclerc was second, Carlos Sainz was third, and Ferrari surrounded Perez for the first time.
The 2022 F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix final race will start at 26:00 JST on Sunday, March 27th. Compete for the championship by making 50 laps on the 6175m Jeddah city course.
