Stroll avoids second penalty after five-place grid drop for passing under yellow

Lance Stroll was hit with a five-place grid penalty for Saturday’s Las Vegas Grand Prix after he overtook under yellow flags in final practice.

The Aston Martin driver was summoned to the stewards ahead of qualifying for the Las Vegas Grand Prix due to an incident that occurred in the closing minutes of Friday’s final practice session.

After Alexander Albon hit the wall at the exit of turn five with under 10 minutes remaining in the one-hour session, the Williams driver cruised slowly back to the pits with a left-rear puncture. The tyre eventually detached from the wheel as Albon drove along the strip, but while marshals waved double yellow flags to warn oncoming drivers of the hazard, there was no indication of the yellow flags on the FIA system.

Stroll approached on a fast lap but despite the waved double yellow flags he overtook C arlos Sainz Jnr.However, it was not until Stroll had reached the braking zone for turn 14 that the yellow flag first appeared on the FIA system, 50 seconds after Albon’s tyre had detached from his car.

AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda also appeared to overtake Valtteri Bottas directly in front of the double-waved yellow flags, but only Stroll was noted to have overtaking under yellow flags. After investigating, the stewards deemed Stroll to have infringed the regulations.

“Double yellow flags were waved at Marshal Post 12.9 as Car 18 [Stroll] approached that point along the straight,” the stewards described in their decision. “After passing the flags, which were clearly visible on the onboard video from Car 18, Car 18 overtook Car 55 [Sainz].”

“The driver of Car 18 stated he had his ‘head down’ looking at his dash and was concentrating on the Ferrari ahead of him and missed the flags. Although there were no yellow light panels displayed, the regulations are clear that the flags and light panels have the same meaning.”

The stewards handed Stroll a drop of five places for Saturday’s grand prix, leaving him down in a provisional 19th position on the grid. He also received three penalty points on his superlicence, bringing him to a total of five over the last year.

Speaking to media including RaceFans, Stroll said that he suspected there was a problem with the FIA system that led to the marshal boards not activating.

“I just didn’t see the yellow flags,” he explained. “Normally we get it on the dash and on the yellow [marshal] board, but there was nothing that came up on the monitors. I think it was a problem with the system, so I missed the flag.”

After qualifying, Stroll was also investigated by the stewards for allegedly failing to slow under yellow flags when a car went off track at turn five, but after examining Stroll’s telemetry data it was determined that he had sufficiently lifted off ahead of the corner and had gone slower through the sector than his previous lap, satisfying the stewards that no infringement had been committed.

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