George Russell will start eighth at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix after he was penalised for impeding in the pit lane exit during Friday’s qualifying session.
Alpine drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly were also issued two-place grid penalties after falling foul of the same rule breach and will drop to 14th and 15th on the grid.
A rule specific to this weekend and laid out in the race director’s notes states that any driver trying to create a gap to the car in front during a qualifying session must do so by staying as far to the left as possible in the pit lane exit.
The pit lane exit at Interlagos runs on the inside of Turn 1, the outside of Turn 2 and only rejoins the track after Turn 3.
The idea of the event-specific rule was to avoid drivers either blocking the pit lane to create a gap, which was an issue at the last round in Mexico, or going slow ion track in the final sector of the lap, which was considered dangerous and has been effectively been banned for several races.
During the first part of qualifying, the stewards determined that all three drivers were not far enough to the left in the pit lane as he attempted to create a gap and blocked other cars getting past.
They issued a two-place grid penalty to the Mercedes driver, which drops Russell to eighth and moves Lando Norris up to sixth and Carlos Sainz up to seventh.
“In order to avoid situations like the ones that occurred in Mexico, the race director’s event notes for this event contained a specific clause (item 14) stipulating that it was permitted to go slow in the pit exit to create a gap before crossing the SC2 line, however, by doing so, a driver must stay as far to the left as possible to allow other drivers to pass on the right side,” the stewards’ statement said.
“Russell was exiting the pits, preparing for an out lap. Russell went slow to create a gap for a clear lap, but did not manage to stay completely to the left.
“As a result, following car(s) were not able to overtake, as intended by the race director’s instructions. This clearly violates the wording and the spirit of item 14 of the race director’s event notes.”
The penalties for Ocon and Gasly had near identical wording.