The Mercedes-AMG Formula One team has been penalized for an incident involving Andrea Kimi Antonelli during Q3 of the Australian Grand Prix qualifying. Fortunately for the 19-year-old driver, he escaped a potential grid drop penalty that would have dropped him from a P2 start to a much lower position.
Kimi Antonelli faced a challenging day after a massive crash during the third free practice session at the Albert Park Circuit. During qualifying, he made it to Q3 as Mercedes’ W17 F1 car exhibited quick pace. However, in the early minutes of Q3, Kimi Antonelli left his garage with the cooling fan still attached to his W17.
While one part of the fan fell onto the gravel, another got dislodged and hit the fence before falling onto the track. Soon after, Lando Norris’ MCL40 ran over the cooling fan component, which destroyed it and splattered debris all over the track.
The red flag was brought out immediately to pause the session. The FIA stewards initiated an investigation into the unsafe release of Kimi Antonelli’s W17, and ultimately handed Mercedes a fine of €7,500 for the infringement. The stewards’ statement read:
“Car 12 (Antonelli) was released from its garage during the session with a duct cooling fan still attached on the right side of the car.
“The fan assembly disconnected from the duct of Car 12 as it negotiated Turn 1, split apart and one section of it bounced off the track onto the gravel at the exit.
“Another section of the fan assembly dislodged onto the track at Turn 2 and was later struck by the front wing and tyre of another car causing debris to be strewn over the track, damage to the front wing of the other car and the session had to be red flagged to remove the debris.
“The team explained that an incident in an earlier session in which car 12 had sustained significant damage meant that the division of labour within the team had to be changed to repair the damage within a short time frame.
“Usually, a separate team member would have responsibility for inserting and removing each fan but the need to address legacy issues from the earlier incident during the session meant that the team member responsible for the fan on that side of the car was occupied on another task and the removal of the fan before the car was released from the garage was missed.
“The team (and the Driver) were unaware that the fan had not been removed until the incident was noted by race control.”
