Charles Leclerc and Lance Stroll have both been handed five-second time penalties for exceeding track limits during the Qatar Grand Prix Sprint.
Leclerc and Stroll were both found to have breached track limits “without a justifiable reason” four times over the course of the 19 lap Sprint.
As a result of the five-second time penalties, Leclerc drops out of the points from seventh to 12th. Alexander Albon therefore picks up two points for Williams, and Fernando Alonso gains a point for Aston Martin.
Five-seconds added to Stroll’s race time drops the Canadian from 13th to 15th, last of the runners.
Track limits were thrust into the headlines on Saturday morning when the FIA and Pirelli jointly announced that tyres were suffering tears between the tyre compound and the tyre carcass.
It was thought that this was due to drivers exceeding the track limits at the high speed Turns 12 and 13, running over the newly introduced ‘Pyramid’ kerbs.
The track was narrowed 80cm inside of the original limits with red and white stripes painted onto the tarmac between Turns 12 and 13 to keep drivers off the kerbs.
Drivers were already limited on practice at the Lusail circuit having only had one hour of running prior to Qualifying on Friday.
The FIA allowed a 10 minute Practice Familiarisation Session for the field before heading straight into the Sprint Shootout.
With the truncated qualifying format only allowing the drivers a handful of laps at speed to get used to the revised layout, it’s no surprise that there were plenty of incidents during the Sprint.
The Stewards deleted 23 laps in total, with breaches occuring in Turns 2, 4, 5, 13, 14 and 15.
