The Monaco Grand Prix stewards explained why George Russell received a harsher penalty than usual for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.
They issued the Mercedes driver a drive-through penalty for cutting across the Nouvelle chicane in order to overtaking Alexander Albon through the race. The standard penalty for this is 10 seconds, though it can be mitigated to five0.
The stewards said they gave Russell a harsher penalty because they believe his move was deliberate. They justified this view by citing his radio message to race engineer Marcus Dudley in which he said he would “take the penalty”.
“Car 63 [Russell] left the track at turn 10 and overtook car 23 [Albon],” the stewards noted. “He did not give that position back and maintained his track position.
“It was clear from the radio message where he said that he would ‘take the penalty’ that the overtake was done deliberately as he felt that he was being held up by car 23 driving erratically.”
The stewards said drivers had been warned not to gain positions at the corner by cutting across the track.
“Anticipating that situations such as this might happen at this Monaco Grand Prix, all the teams were informed before the race by the race director (at the [stewards’] request) that the stewards would look carefully at a deliberate leaving of the track at turn 10 to overtake a car or a train of slow cars.
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“That communication also made it clear that the guideline penalty of 10 seconds may be insufficient for this deliberate infringement and that the penalty applied may be a greater penalty than 10 seconds.
“We therefore considered that car 63’s deliberate infringement warranted a drive through penalty and we so imposed.”
This article will be updated
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