Mercedes fined over pit release

Mercedes has been hit with a €10,000 fine for an unsafe release of Michael Schumacher’s car during qualifying.

The German was sent out of the garage moments after Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren was, leading to the 2008 world champion having to drive around him in the pits.

The race stewards, including former Lotus and Arrows racer Martin Donnelly, deemed that Mercedes was in breach of Article 23.12 of the sporting regulations, which deems it to be “the responsibility of the competitor to release his car after a pitstop only when it is safe to do so”.

Hamilton did not have a problem with the incident and was just happy to have got ahead of Schumacher before the pit exit.

“I didn’t have any problems,” he said.

“I was let out of my garage before he was and then they tried to get him ahead of me but he was coming out slowly so I overtook him because I was already on the speed limiter, which is 100 km/h, and he was doing maybe 20 or 30 km/h.

“But it gained position, which is very important.”

It is the second time this weekend that Mercedes has been in trouble with the stewards after Schumacher was given a reprimand for impeding the HRTs of Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan during Friday practice.

Mercedes has been punished for an unsafe release once previously this season after it sent Schumacher’s car onto the track with a wheel not properly attached during the Chinese Grand Prix.

Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/formula-one-news/f1-formula-one-news/mercedes-fined-over-pit-release

André Guelfi Miguel Ángel Guerra Roberto Guerrero Maurício Gugelmin Dan Gurney