No penalties following qualifying investigation

Following an investigation instigated by the stewards for ‘clarification’ purposes after qualifying, in which seven drivers were asked about their behaviour in the second part of qualifying, there has been no action taken and the result has become final.

Both RML drivers Yvan Muller and Tom Chilton, the two Honda drivers Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro, both of bamboo-engineering’s drivers James Nash and Alex MacDowall and Tuenti Racing’s Pepe Oriola were all spoken to after they had slowly headed around on their outlap in Q2, which had also appeared to have impeded José María López who was on a second fast run in his BMW.

The concern was whether this appeared to be a repeat of the scenario which occurred in Salzburg, where the drivers collectively, but without agreement, effectively scuppered their final lap by driving slowly around the track in order to ensure nobody took point and offered the cars behind a slipstream.

On this occasion it was recognised that the drivers behaviour was more usual, in that they were not using the life of their tyres before their final run and were not trying to manipulate the order or driving in a dangerous manner i.e. too slowly.

With qualifying now confirmed, Yvan Muller will still start from pole position ahead of team-mate Tom Chilton tomorrow, with the only post qualifying penalty that of Mikhail Koszlokskiy’s deletion of lap times due to a parc fermé breach, and the predetermined penalties for Tiago Monteiro and Rob Huff, going to the back for an engine change in race one, and for Hugo Valente dropping ten spots after an incident with Franz Engstler last time out at Porto.