Leclerc and Stroll under investigation over delta time breaches · RaceFans

Charles Leclerc and Lance Stroll are at risk of incurring grid penalties for Saturday’s sprint race in Shanghai.

The pair are under investigation for failing to obey the maximum delta time between the Safety Car lines during the sprint race qualifying session. Both incidents occured during the second stage of the session.

The stewards will consider whether they complied with the race director’s guidance for the Chinese Grand Prix, which states: “For the safe and orderly conduct of the event, other than in exceptional circumstances accepted as such by the stewards, any driver that exceeds the maximum time from the Second Safety Car Line to the First Safety Car Line on any lap during and after the end of the sprint qualifying and qualifying session, including in-laps and out-laps or during reconnaissance laps when the pit exit is opened for the sprint or race, may be deemed to be going unnecessarily slowly.”

Drivers are routinely noted for failing to adhere to this guidance during qualifying sessions, but the stewards typically note they had no alternative but to breach the maximum time as they had to slow down to let other cars past. However in Leclerc and Stroll’s cases they clearly suspect this was not the case.

Three drivers were penalised for violating this rule at the Qatar Grand Prix last year. Sergio Perez and Yuki Tsunoda were reprimanded for doing so in the sprint race session, while Max Verstappen was given a one-place grid penalty for the infringement in qualifying for the grand prix, as he was also found to have obstructed George Russell.

Leclerc appeared to commit his infringement following an instruction from Ferrari to allow his team mate Lewis Hamilton to pass him. His race engineer Bryan Bozzi told him during SQ2: “Can we swap the cars, please?” After checking the order Leclerc replied: “I’ll do it but we’ve never done that and I’m in the shit here.”

This article will be updated

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