Ricciardo penalised twice for French GP battle

Daniel Ricciardo has been slapped with two post-race penalties following his actions in a final lap scuffle in the French Grand Prix.

The Australian was part of a four-way scrap for seventh place, passing Lando Norris and Kimi Raikkonen to take the spot midway around the final tour.

However, in passing Norris he ran off the road under braking at the chicane in the middle of the Mistral Straight.

With Raikkonen scampering through, Ricciardo then slipstreamed the Alfa Romeo on the approach to Signes, moving outside the bounds of the racing surface as he lined up to make the pass.

Post-race, officials investigated the scrap, and elected to hand out two separate five-second penalties to the Aussie; one for each instance he ran off the track.

The first penalty was for an unsafe rejoin following his pass on Norris, which forced the McLaren off-track.

“The Stewards reviewed video evidence and on-board video from multiple cars, heard from the driver of car 3 (Daniel Ricciardo), the driver of car 4 (Lando Norris), the driver of car 7 (Kimi Raikkonen) and team representatives,” the stewards’ report read.

“Ricciardo started to pass Norris on the outside at turn eight.

“At the exit of the corner he distinctly left the track and the Stewards determined that he re-joined at an angle that forced Norris off the track to avoid the collision.

“The Stewards accepted Ricciardo’s explanation that when he was re-joining the track, he had slowed considerably, going down extra gears and locking up the front left tyre.

“He also stated that the rumble strips in the turn made the car more difficult to control.

“However, the Stewards considered that the sequence of events constituted re-joining the track unsafely, and he subsequently took the position from Norris.”

The second penalty was handed down for leaving the track and gaining an advantage as Ricciardo squeezed himself alongside Raikkonen on the run to the flat out Signes corner.

“Following the incident at turn 8 with Norris, Raikkonen managed to pass both Norris and Ricciardo,” the stewards’ second report stated.

“Ricciardo, who by then had regained control of his car then chased Raikkonen from turn 9 and subsequently passed Raikkonen. Raikkonen defended his position on the straight moving slightly to the right.

“However, Raikkonen never put any part of his car off the track and he did not make any move to the right while any part of Ricciardo’s car was alongside, and did not crowd Ricciardo off the track.

“To make the pass Ricciardo drove off track and then subsequently completed the pass, gaining a lasting advantage

“The Stewards reviewed the case to see if it was a continuation of the previous incident.

“However, Ricciardo clearly had regained control of the car following his incident with Norris and the pass off track was a separate incident.”

As the stewards viewed the two off-track moments as separate incidents, separate penalties were handed down.

With an additional 10 seconds added to his race time, Ricciardo falls from seventh to 11th in the final standings, with Pierre Gasly moving into the last points paying spot.

Updated Results: Formula 1 French Grand Prix