Chilton to start race with penalty

2013 United States Grand Prix

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Max Chilton will have to serve a drive-through penalty within the first five laps of the United States Grand Prix.

The Marussia driver was penalised for holding up Pastor Maldonado and Adrian Sutil during qualifying. He will start the race from the back row of the grid.

This is the second time this year a driver has been issued a sanction by the stewards before the start of a race. Charles Pic was given a drive-through penalty in similar circumstances at the Japanese Grand Prix.

The stewards also penalised Esteban Gutierrez for holding up Maldonado, ruling he “unnecessarily impeded car 16 between turns 19 and 20 whilst performing maneuverers that the stewards consider dangerous”.

The Sauber driver was relegated ten places on the grid and will start the race from 20th position.

2013 United States Grand Prix

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Image © Marussia

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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24 comments on “Chilton to start race with penalty”

  1. best call possible for a back-marker team I think, Grid penalty would have been ridiculous here.

    1. Ok the penalty is effectively served that way. But it costs a lot more time than a grid penalty.

      In comparison to Gutierrez who can overtake at the start and keep up on track, Chilton will have to give back everything he worked for.

      Rules could book something like ‘the driver in question has to be demoted for 10 positions, and if he cannot give back those positions due to being at the back of the grid, he still has to lose them over the course of the season, as soon as he can.’

      1. @jeff1s

        In comparison to Gutierrez who can overtake at the start and keep up on track

        A grid penalty’s severity depends on the situation. At Monaco a 10 place grid drop, could in terms of time, cost three times more then the same penalty for the same driver at Spa.

      2. It al depends on Gutierrez’ start of course. Making up al those places -even if he has a blistering start- will see him losing a lot of time + making up places during the race, when everybody’s pace around you is pretty similar to what you are doing makes that job even tougher I think.
        Chilton on the other hand looses practically no places at the start and around 20 seconds by performing a drive-through + he comes out in clean air.
        By the end of the race Chilton will be on par with his starting position, whereas Gutierrez’ result will be much more of an uncertainty considering the competitiveness in midfield.

      3. Or move back 10 slots painted on the ground, something for that effect.

  2. This is interesting. I didn’t know such penalties could be given by stewards.

    May be they could hand-out such penalties for incidents that happen late in the race. For eg: When Vettel overtook Button in Germany 2011, he was given a 25 second penalty. Instead, he could be given penalty for the next race. It adds a new strategy element to the races as well.

    1. No, I don’t agree. Post-race time penalties are appropriate when there is not enough time left in the race to serve a drive-through or stop/go. Barring cases where a driver is being penalised for something that happens in a race he’s already retired from, penalties shouldn’t be carried over to the next event. It is much cleaner and less controversial to deal with incidents in that way.

  3. So the driver who was most likely to finish last will now definitely finish last…

    1. @geemac As you would expect after he’s been given a penalty? If another of the bottom four gets a drive-through he can still beat them.

      1. Well anything is possible…

        1. Agree Like when Pic had his drive-through he still beat Chilton in the race

          1. Caterham and Pic are good, Marussia and Chilton aren’t ;)

  4. But if he finishes this race also we have a record to keep track of most consecutive finishes. If he does it in austin and interlagos, and cannot find a seat for 2014 he could have 100% finish record carder. That would take a long time to be beaten. @keithcollantaine is there anyone with 100% finishes who drove a full season?

    1. @keithcollantine

      apologies for the typo

      1. Not for rookies @bharat141, but recently Kimi Räikkönen did it in 2012 and Schumacher famously finished every race on the podium in 2002.

        1. @vettel1
          I know those instances but my doubt was did anyone do it at the start of career. Thanks for the answer

          1. For rookie seasons I’m pretty sure Tiago Monterio is the only one to have really come close to finishing every race @bharat141 but there may well be some from when the calendar was shorter many years ago, I’ll tag @andae23 – he’s good at these things :)

            The question is of course does anyone have a 100% finishing record in their debut season, all races entered.

          2. @vettel1 @bharat41
            Actually Kovalainen almost did as well in 2007, until his Renault fell apart at the last race in Interlagos (?), that was really unfortunate.

          3. He didn’t actually finish the Monaco GP @woshidavid95 but was classified as he finished over 90% of the race distance.

            I don’t think anyone has actually finished every race in their debut season though from my check!

          4. @vettel1 That’s correct, before Chilton claimed the record for most successive race finishes without ever having a DNF, Monteiro was the holder.

    2. He drives too slowly to crash

  5. Surprised Maldonado hasn’t accused Williams of paying off Chilton and Gutierrez to hold him up.

    1. Haha.
      I know that would never happen, but if it did, it would be EXTRA insulting, because it would probably be Maldonado’s PDVSA money that they used to pay Max and Esteban!

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