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Nico Hulkenberg has been stripped of his front-row starting place for tomorrow’s Canadian Grand Prix after picking up a grid penalty.
The Haas driver sensationally qualified second fastest in mixed conditions, but post-session, he found himself called to front the stewards for a red flag infringement.
Hulkenberg had been found to have driven too quickly under red flag conditions after Oscar Piastri crashed during Qualifying 3.
Having heard from the 35-year-old, Stewards opted to drop him three places on the grid for tomorrow’s race.
“The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 27 (Nico Hulkenberg), team representative and reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video, timing, telemetry, team radio and in-car video evidence,” the Stewards summary noted.
“The driver had just finished his fastest lap and had started another push lap.
“He was at T1 when the red flag was displayed, however at that point he was already 1.5 seconds over his delta time.
“He claimed this made it extremely difficult for him to come below the delta in the next sector.
“He also admitted to confusion about the beep signal in his headset, and therefore at one stage thought he was going too slow.
“Comparison of telemetry with that of Car 31 showed that in general for the rest of the lap he was approximately the same speed as Car 31 which complied with the delta times in each mini-sector.
“We regard this as a mitigating circumstance.
“However, the regulation is very clear and whilst there is no question of the driver acting dangerously or driving unsafely, there was a breach and thus a penalty has to be imposed.
“The normal penalty for failure to slow under red flags is 10 grid positions however in view of the mitigating circumstance, a lower penalty is appropriate.
“We note the intention of the regulation is to ensure a car is not speeding during a red flag situation and there is no evidence that the speed was excessive in this case.
“We also note that the driver should make himself more familiar with the operational aspects of the delta signals.”
The result means Fernando Alonso will join Max Verstappen on the front row, with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell filling out Row 2.
Hulkenberg will slot into fifth, while behind him three other drivers have also been penalised.
Carlos Sainz has fallen to 11th after he was deemed to have impeded Pierre Gasly in Qualifying 1, for which he copped the three-place penalty.
The same was meted out to Lance Stroll and Yuki Tsunoda for separate incidents, the pair set to start 15th and 19th respectively.
