Trulli, Sutil and Kovi - no action to be taken

[susieq]

From Autosport (Twitter)

The Brazilian Grand Prix stewards deemed no action was needed following the accident involving Jarno Trulli and Adrian Sutil.

Both drivers were forced to retire from the Interlagos race after making contact on the opening lap.

Although Trulli was very upset and blamed Sutil for the accident, the stewards deemed it had been a racing incident that needed no action.

The stewards also cleared McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen, who has under investigation after leaving the pits with the fuel hose still attached to his car.

[f1diva]

Glad the stewards had a bit of common sense lol, no real reason for penalties, all racing incidents. As for the Kovy incident, what a great thing to see the Brawn guys take out the fuel rig from his car, great sportsmen. Just shows it's not completely a dog eat dog world in Formula One

F1Diva

[WickedPlans]

That's not what it says on the F1 site www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2009/10/10119.html

The opening laps of Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix were a busy time for the Interlagos race stewards, with several incidents taking place in close succession. As a result Toyota’s Jarno Trulli, McLaren and their driver Heikki Kovalainen have each been handed penalties.

On the first lap Trulli and Force India’s Adrian Sutil tangled as the Italian attempted a move on the German. After considering video evidence and telemetry data, the stewards decided not to take any further action, labelling the coming together as a racing incident.

But after ‘failing to leave the track as required by the marshals immediately after the incident and aggressively confronting Sutil’, Trulli was found to have breached Article 151 (c) of the 2009 FIA International Sporting Code, which rules against ‘any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally.’ Consequently he was reprimanded and fined US$10,000.

With the safety car deployed for the Trulli-Sutil incident, there was drama in the pit-lane soon after, when Kovalainen exited his pit too early, leaving with his fuel hose still attached to the car. Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, who was right behind the emerging McLaren, got a face fuel of fuel, which then ignited.

McLaren were fined $50,000 for the unsafe pit stop release, while their Finnish driver was given a drive-through penalty. As this was handed down after the race had finished, 25 seconds were instead added to his race time, dropping him from ninth to 12th in the final results.

An earlier Lap One incident between Kovalainen and Ferrari’s Giancarlo Fisichella, in which the McLaren driver was sent spinning into the Italian after being tagged by Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, was deemed a racing incident.

[fizzycola]

Hmmmmm

Re the Brawn guys helping to take the fuel rig of Kovy...... let's not forget that Brawn just happens to use Mercedes engines also........

I'm a McLaren fan but even I can see a drive tho for unsafe release in the pit lane should have been applied...........

fizzy

[WickedPlans]

I think the Brawn guys acted out of safety and decency to get the car moving out of the way as quickly as possible. A car stuck in the pit lane is a real hazard.

Post race drive through penalties when no points are involved are a complete waste of time.

[gizzy]

Kovy should have had a penalty during the race. The stewards were too Slooooow in reprimanding him. If I were Kimmi, I would be pissed off...a huge spray of gas in my face, big fire and no penalty at the time. Kovy should have had a drive through penalty as a minimum.

[redline]

why should kovy have penalty as the stick man must have lifted it to allow him to go so it should be a team penalty

[WickedPlans]

The driver has to take the penalty. There is no point in just punishing the team.
There has to be a clear deterrent for an unsafe pit release.