-
ESPN staff
Pierre Gasly needed a strong weekend to recover from a slow start to his Red Bull career, but the Frenchman has been forced into a pit-lane start for Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix due to a rules violation at the end of Friday’s second practice session.
Gasly was called into the weighbridge at the start of the pit-lane as the session concluded, but he drove straight past. Red Bull then carried out a practice pit-stop on his car and changing the tyres, instead of sending him back.
At the end of any practice session, drivers will be randomly called to park their car on the weighbridge, signaled by their number flashing up on the pit-lane entry.
The FIA verdict said: « The Stewards reviewed video evidence and heard from the driver of car 10 (Pierre Gasly) and the team representative and determined that the driver failed to stop for weighing when required to do so.
« Instead, he drove on and proceeded to do a pit stop where the car was worked on by lifting the car and all four wheels were changed, in breach of Article 29.1 a). Under Article 29.1 a) the penalty for this infringement is specified to be for the car to start from the pitlane and we so order. »
It’s a blow to Gasly, who has been comprehensively out-paced by Max Verstappen since his step up to Red Bull this year. Gasly was promoted from Toro Rosso earlier than Red Bull had originally intended to fill the void left by Daniel Ricciardo’s shock decision to leave the team for Renault.
http://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/26611324/pierre-gasly-forced-start-azerbaijan-grand-prix-pit-lane-fp2-infringement
