The principle of determining positions at the start with penalties

At the last Italian Grand Prix in Monza, nine riders were fined for various violations that led to the loss of positions at the start. Because almost half of the peloton belonged to the fines, it took a lot of time at the start to determine the exact positions.

The penalty positioning system has been changed several times in recent years. This was mainly because the fines themselves changed. In Monza, riders were fined two types of “losing positions” and “starting from the end of the starting grid”, which was introduced in 2018 to simplify the system.

The first thing to consider when determining positions is that the “start at the end of the starting grid” penalty takes precedence. For example, if “Rider A” is penalized with the loss of one hundred positions at the start, he will be physically placed on the grid above “Rider B” with a “start from the end of the starting grid” penalty.

In addition, additional fines do not count. In Monza, for example, it didn’t matter to determine the starting positions that Carlos Sainz got two penalties “from the end of the grid”.

According to Formula 1 sporting regulations, “loss of position at the start” is applied before the penalty “start from the end of the grid”. In other words, after qualifying, the riders’ starting positions are first determined with a penalty “loss of positions at the start”. Of course it is physically impossible to start under 20th position, so riders with more penalty points will move to the last positions.

According to established practice, a driver who can physically lose the number of positions for which he has been penalized will lose them and not regain the positions due to the penalties of his rivals. This was done to gain positions at the start at the expense of the penalties of others received by the riders who were not fined.

Thereafter, the penalty “from the end of the starting grid” is applied. The rider with this penalty will move to last place, one position ahead of the rider who was in last place ahead of him with the starting penalty.

If several riders are penalized by “starting from the end of the grid”, the positions between them will be determined by the results of the qualifying – “rider A”, for example, who qualified fifth, will start higher than “rider B” , who set the sixth fastest time in qualifying.

A few years ago, the FIA ​​approached penalties differently, applying them in turn and changing the grid each time. As a result, in situations where multiple riders were fined, the position losses were more likely to offset each other. The current approach is that riders should serve all their penalties if possible.