Esteban Ocon received a penalty point

After taking into account the circumstances of the incident that occurred during the sprint with the unsafe exit of Esteban Ocon from the pits, the stewards of the Miami Grand Prix fined not the team, but the driver.

“After studying the video recordings, the stewards noticed this when leaving the pits [перед стартом спринта] car #31 (Esteban Ocon) collided with car #16 (Charles Leclerc) in the pit lane.

It follows from the recording that the driver did not receive permission to leave from the team representative. Furthermore, the recording shows that the team representative asked him to stop. However, the driver pulled out and a collision occurred.

We considered the incident to be more serious than normal because the driver was not allowed to enter the pit lane. We have therefore punished the driver with a time penalty of ten seconds and one penalty point,” said the stewards’ decision.

Esteban called the incident a stupid mistake.

Esteban Ocon: “To be honest, it was a stupid mistake because this is not the time when you should take risks. There was an obvious misunderstanding between me and the mechanic.

First he said “go”, and then suddenly he said “stop”, but I was already driving. It’s just a big mistake on our part, we have to handle these situations better.”

This is Ocon’s first penalty in twelve months.