Bottas will be starting from the back of the grid for Saturday’s sprint race at the Hard Rock Stadium. This penalty was given because he got in the way of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri during Friday’s sprint qualifying, which could have caused a crash.
The incident happened when Bottas was driving slowly into Turn 1, just after finishing a fast lap, while Piastri was coming up behind him on a fast lap of his own. Both drivers managed to avoid a crash, but the stewards found that Sauber, Bottas’s team, didn’t warn him that Piastri was coming up fast. This mistake contributed to the incident, so Bottas got a grid penalty.
According to the rules, drivers are responsible for not getting in the way of others unnecessarily, so Bottas got penalized because he was driving slowly on the racing line and caused the situation.
This incident is noteworthy because Bottas has a new race engineer this weekend, which was a sudden change made by Sauber between this race and the last one in China.
Meanwhile, in another investigation, the stewards decided not to punish Mercedes for not wearing helmets while working on Lewis Hamilton’s car during sprint qualifying. According to the rules, all team members working on a car in the pit lane must wear helmets and eye protection. However, the stewards found that several other teams were also not following this rule, so they decided not to penalize Mercedes.
Instead, they asked the FIA to consider whether the rules need to be changed. Also, some drivers were investigated for driving too slowly during qualifying but were not penalized, which has become common in recent F1 seasons.
