Gutierrez handed five-place grid penalty for Wehrlein incident

2016 Belgian Grand Prix

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Stewards have awarded Esteban Gutierrez a five-place gird penalty for qualifying after finding him guilty of blocking Pascal Wehrlein in final practice.

Gutierrez was not on a flying lap when he failed to leave enough space for Wehrlein to pass in Radillion, with the Manor driver forced to take to the grass to avoid a collision. Wehrlein was audibly furious at the Mexican, berating him over team radio.

The Haas driver has also been given three penalty points on his super license for the incident. Gutierrez currently has seven points on his license.

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Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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5 comments on “Gutierrez handed five-place grid penalty for Wehrlein incident”

  1. 5 place grid penalty, 3 penalty points and one FINGER!

  2. I know this is unrelated but that camera mounted on Vettels car make it look like he’s on a Sunday drive. Looks like he going 40mph max, horrible positioning.

  3. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
    27th August 2016, 19:08

    I disagree that Wehrlein was forced onto the grass. He simply wasn’t. Gutierrez was in the wrong again but Wehrlein made it look a huge amount more dramatic and dangerous than necessary. Wehrlein could see that Gutierrez was in a very inconvenient place. However, he could have braked instead of only lifting off slightly and choosing to go on the grass. There was another more sensible option such as going around the outside of him. I know Gutierrez should have moved but Wehrlein made a rather big deal about it. It looked nowhere near as bad as what Verstappen did to Bottas in practice in Canada. That was much worse and Verstappen only got a reprimand. Verstappen was on a warm up lap going very slowly on a bend that was blind to Bottas (Bottas was on a fast lap). Verstappen didn’t even seem to move off the racing line as Bottas suddenly came up behind him and Bottas pretty much had no choice but to drive off the track as he had only just seen Verstappen and was going round a tight bend.

    What Gutierrez was clearly doing yet another thing that was against the rules but I think he should just get a reprimand at max as Wehrlein didn’t really need to make it look as bad as it was. It only looked dangerous because of Wherlein driving onto the grass. As I said, I’m pretty sure he could have avoided that.

    1. @thegianthogweed
      Ah yes, the different-drivers-different-rules policy of the FIA has come into play yet again.

      1. You mean same old Guti, almost doing Maldo! He s blocking people left and right front and back! Good thing is he is not racist, he is doing it to everyone :)

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