The investigation and acquittal
Andrea Kimi Antonelli will regularly start from second position in tomorrow’s Sprint. The Mercedes Italian had been placed under investigation by the commissioners for an alleged impeding action that was allegedly committed against Lando Norris during SQ2. The stewards, however, after analyzing video footage, telemetry and radio teams, agreed with the standard bearer of the Brackley team, who already in post-qualifying interviews he defended himself claiming that the world champion it wasn’t on a fast lap but ‘simply’ on a flying lap. Norris himself confirmed this version of events, as explained in the official document released by the FIA.
“The driver of car 1 (Lando Norris) told us he was doing a “warm-up lap” and not a flying lap – we read in the note released by the commissioners – in other words, he was not actively trying to achieve a significant time when car 12 (Kimi Antonelli) exited the pit lane and onto the track. If car 1 had been on a fast lap, given car 12’s position on the track, car 12 would have unnecessarily hindered car 1. In light of the clear position taken by the driver of car 1 that he was not being impeded by car 12 as he was not trying to achieve a significant lap time, we took no further action“.
