Audi has received an official warning after the stewards ruled that Nico Hulkenberg was driving excessively slowly during qualifying.
The decision followed an incident in which Charles Leclerc caught Hulkenberg’s slow-moving Audi in the tunnel at the Monte-Carlo circuit. Stewards determined Hulkenberg’s race engineer gave him incorrect information about traffic behind him.
“Car 16 [Leclerc] was on a prep lap and car 27 [Hulkenberg] was on a cool-down lap and therefore the two cars were on different speed strategies,” the stewards said. “Car 27 was advised by the team that it was ‘all clear behind’ and this was not correct and accordingly a warning is imposed on the team.”
The warning does not change Hulkenberg’s qualifying result. He will start Sunday’s race 13th on the grid.
In a separate matter, the stewards fined Williams €5,000 for obstructing Arvid Lindblad’s car in the pit lane. The incident occurred when Alexander Albon arrived at the Williams pit while Carlos Sainz Jr’s car was already being serviced.
“Car 55 [Sainz] was already stopped in front of the Williams team garage area as car 23 [Albon] approached,” the stewards explained. “Car 23 drove around car 55 and in doing so prevented, for a short time, car 41 [Lindblad] from entering its pit stop position. In doing so, car 41 narrowly missed running over the foot of one of the mechanics attending to car 23.”
The Williams team accepted they could have handled the situation differently. The stewards issued a formal warning and imposed the fine because of the potential safety risk to pit crew members.
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