The Las Vegas F1 race weekend is off to a disastrous start. Carlos Sainz’s car broke down on the pit cover, but he received a penalty. The stands were also emptied, because the security guards’ shifts ended in the middle of everything.
The catastrophic stages of the F1 weekend in Las Vegas will continue. The jury of the competition informed that it has to be given For Carlos Sainz starting square penalty.
Sainz’s Ferrari broke down in the first practice when he drove over a dislodged pit cover on the track.
Ferrari team manager Frederic Vasseur recently stated that two-thirds of Sainz’s car will have to be replaced.
For Sainz, for example, the power source had to be changed. Sainz’s car had already had the maximum number of powertrain parts replaced this season, so the new parts brought a penalty.
Ferrari would have wished that replacing the powertrain parts would not have counted now because the car broke down for reasons beyond their control.
The jury of the competition said in its decision that they understand that Sainz’s car was damaged in truly exceptional circumstances. According to the rules, however, the jury has to follow the rules as they are written. Thus, in this situation, they had no option not to give the starting square penalty.
The jury said they could have reduced Sainz’s sentence if they had had the power to do so under the rules.
According to Autosport, the jury spent two hours trying to find a way for Sainz to avoid the penalty. However, in accordance with the rules, Sainz received a big ten grid penalty for Sunday’s race.
Sky Sports’ F1 experts Karun Chandhok and Jenson Button knocked out the penalty immediately.
– I know it’s a rule, but can’t all the teams let Ferrari off the hook here? Button wondered.
– This is ridiculous, Chandhok snapped.
Motorsport media Autosport published a picture of the situation where Carlos Sainz’s car broke down.
You can also see and hear the big damage in the viewer’s video published about the situation.
The stands are empty due to security team shifts
Sainz and by Esteban Ocon after the damage to the cars, the first practices were stopped after ten minutes. The FIA said that after the incident, they will examine all pit covers on the 6.2 kilometer long track.
The second exercises got underway two and a half hours late, i.e. at 2:30 am local time.
Ferrari worked hard and quickly fixed Sainz’s car, even though team manager Vasseur had suspected it was impossible.
A big topic of discussion in the night practice was also that the stands and fan areas of the F1 track in Las Vegas had to be closed and emptied.
The Las Vegas race organization announced on social media that the reason is logistical reasons. Since then, however, the competition organization removed the decision that opened up the reasons for the emptying. Autosport by fans had to leave the fan zones because the security teams stopped working. Therefore, it is not possible to operate in the stands and fan areas in the normal way.
The ice hockey championship league club Lahti Pelicans showed a twinkle in the corner of their eyes when Pelicans responded to the F1 series message about the cancellation of the first training sessions at X. The Pelicans returned the handshake with a descriptive smiley.
Pelicans made headlines earlier this week when the team’s CHL game had to be interrupted and eventually canceled due to ice problems. Czech Vitkovice was sentenced to victory with 3–0 goals.
The second rehearsals, stretched to 90 minutes, are currently underway in Las Vegas.