Photo: Rudy Carezzevoli / Formula Motorsport Ltd
A spree of post-race penalties following today’s Formula 2 and FIA Formula 3 action at Silverstone has reduced Ollie Bearman and Caio Collet’s points tallies from the weekend.
Bearman originally finished sixth in the F2 feature race, but got demoted to eighth after recieving a five-second penalty and a penalty point for contact with Kush Maini at turn 17. That incident led to Maini making contact with his Campos Racing team-mate Ralph Boschung, on which stewards took no action on.
Prema driver Bearman avoided a further penalty for allegedly forcing Maini off at at the same corner after Maini had tried passing around the outside of turn 15. MP Motorsport’s Jehan Daruvala inherited sixth from Bearman, which also lifted him to 11th in the championship standings.
Daruvala, PHM Racing by Charouz’s Roy Nissany and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Richard Verschoor all got five-second penalties for pitlane speeding, and Nissany got an additional 10s penalty and two penalty points for contact with Prema’s Frederik Vesti. He dropped from 12th to 17th in the final race result, while Verschoor gained a spot to 16th due to Nissany’s second penalty.
Boschung retired but recieved a five-second penalty and two penalty points (bringing him up to five on his licence) for overtaking Ayumu Iwasa at the second safety car line. Boschung was going through turn one when Iwasa exited the pitlane, and Iwasa crossed the second safety car line before Boschung did. Therefore stewards determined Boschung had passed Iwasa at turn two, and making it an illegal pass during a safety car period.
DAMS’ Arthur Leclerc was fined €500 for pitlane speeding on the reconnassance lap, and Prema were fined €1,500. The first €1,000 was for releasing Vesti from his pitstop with damaged damaged front-left suspension, and the €500 that followed was because “the air blower fell off Car 7 at turn 11 when Car 7 (Vesti) was driving from the F2 paddock to the Formula 1 pitlane prior to the start of” the feature race.
Points leader Vesti also avoided a penalty for contact he had with Roman Stanek just before the first safety car restart during the race.
In F3 there were more changes to their feature race result due to penalties, although VAR’s Caio Collet was the only driver to lose points.
He finished ninth on-the-road, then recieved a five-second penalty for overtaking Rodin Carlin’s Ido Cohen off-track at turn 15 and gaining a lasting advantage. Due to the closenes of the field, the penalty dropped him all the way down to 15th.
His team-mate Tommy Smith should have benefited to score his first F3 point, having finished 11th, but he was penalised 15s for exceeding track limits five times and that dropped him way down to 25th place.
PHM’s Roberto Faria retired but still had a five-second penalty for an “inaccurate start position”, while fellow retiree Jonny Edgar (MP) had his five-second penalty for colliding with Collet at turn 16 converted into a three-place grid penalty for the next F3 round.