Originally Posted by
Dicknose
Amazing that ended up with no penalty.
That’s normally a rule they are strict about. Pardon the pun but “that’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed”
Yes it was the teams mistake, but the driver should also know not to abort that late. While no incident resulted is no really the point, those rules are there to stop dangerous incidents and shouldn’t be turned into “but it’s ok if done safely”.
His change wasn’t for any safety reason, it wasn’t like a crash happened in the pit lane and he was avoiding an incident. It was a change of strategy. In effect he gained an advantage by breaking the rule, that alone should be a reason for a penalty.
Hard call because it could be seen as affecting the result and the season. But a steward needs to ignore that and consider the infraction in terms of rules, safety and fairness. Once you let this go with just a reprimand you open up a lot of leeway and next time someone does something they can say “but Hamilton got no punishment”