Lewis Hamilton had a close call this morning during Free Practice 1 at the Singapore Grand Prix. His fuel temperature was checked by a track marshal at 20.3°C while the ambient temperature was 32°C. The regulations, however, stipulate that the fuel temperature must be at most 10 degrees below the air temperature.
The team was therefore fined €5,000 for non-compliance with Article 6.5.2 of the 2019 F1 technical regulations.
The statement specifies that the gasoline intended to be used shortly should never be 10 degrees or more below the ambient temperature and communicated to the teams by the relevant services.
Tim Meyer, Mika Salo, Enzo Spano, and Nish Shetty are the stewards responsible for decisions this weekend in Singapore. They also explain: « In the case of car number 44 [editor’s note: Lewis Hamilton], the fuel temperature was more than 11 degrees lower than the air temperature. The published temperature was 32°C while the fuel temperature was at least 11 degrees below that. »
The team acknowledged that the temperature was lower than expected due to a setting error in the parameters. Since this occurred during Free Practice 1, we have imposed a fine.
