The facts first. In Q3, at Turn 3, a yellow flag is shown after Lando Norris runs off. Williams warns Carlos Sainz over the radio. A few hours after the session, the stewards hand the Spaniard a five-place penalty, dropping him from ninth to fourteenth.
Sainz explained that he had slowed overall across the whole zone. The FIA rejected that reading. The stewards wrote: “When several consecutive marshal sectors are under yellow flag conditions, a driver must show a significant reaction and reduce speed in each of those sectors.”
Earlier that morning, after FP3, he had already been summoned for a similar infringement at Turn 4, and got away with a reprimand for mitigating circumstances. This time, none: the team’s warning had come early enough. Two points on the superlicence, four over twelve months. Alex Albon, thirteenth, moves up to twelfth.
We asked Josiane for her report. She wasn’t at Baku, but she read the document.
Report, post 14. The document says “each of those sectors.” I’ve been reading that on my clipboard for thirty years. A sector is a post. Each post raises its own flag, each post wants to see the foot lift in front of it. You don’t slow down for your neighbour. Post 13 has its yellow, I have mine. You were warned on the radio, which is more than Jean-Luc gets in thirty years. The heated room took a few hours. Forty-seven cameras. This time, the result suits me. I wave the flag. I don’t judge. Nothing further to report.
George Russell will start from pole, Max Verstappen eighth.
It’s true, we checked: F1i (Auto Journal).
