3 place penalty for Mazepin on the grid
Young driver Nikita Mazepin made his presence felt once again in qualifying on Saturday, getting in the way of several drivers. He received a 3-place grid penalty for the Spanish Grand Prix and 1 point off his driver's license.
Nikita Mazepin is a rookie and drives a slower car than his competitors. These two conditions lead to comical situations at the start of the season. This Saturday during the qualifying session of the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, the Russian driver notably impeded several drivers including Lando Norris.
Both called in front of the stewards at the end of the session, they decided to penalize the Russian driver from Haas by 3 grid places as specified in Article 31.5 of the FIA sporting regulations. The Russian was already last in qualifying, so this will not affect his starting position.
More worrying, however, for Mazepin, he had 1 point deducted from his driver’s license. He now has only 10 out of the 12 points awarded since the beginning of the season. The driver had already had 1 point deducted in Portugal last week for ignoring a blue flag during the race.
The situation occurred at the beginning of the qualifying session while several cars were on a slowing down lap and several drivers were on a preparation lap for a timed lap. Mazepin then decided to hold onto his position for his flying lap while Noris was approaching from behind and had to abort his timed lap at the end of the straight.
The Russian driver did not say to himself that he was upset by the sanction because I still cannot render myself invisible.
