Haas take advantage of Ollie Bearman penalty with clever change

Ollie Bearman will start the Dutch Grand Prix from the Zandvoort pit lane following a change of power unit in the back of his Haas.

The move by the American team is to take advantage of a penalty for a rare rules breach, with the final outcome being the same.

Bearman had qualified 19th and slowest of all the drivers to set a lap-time after Lance Stroll crashed, but hours after qualifying, the team were reported to the stewards by FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer for a breach of Article 40.6 of the sporting regulations.

This covers the fact that Bearman's car was not covered within two hours of qualifying finishing, so FIA seals can be fixed ahead of parc ferme. 

The wording of the rule adds that any driver found to have breached Article 40.6 will also be found to have broken Article 40.9, parc ferme regulations, and be handed a mandatory pit-lane start.

The FIA has now officially confirmed the pit lane start for the British driver, who has been found guilty of the alleged breaches.

Bearman was on the limit of a grid penalty for most of the power unit components now replaced, but because the changes were made in parc ferme conditions, plus the unusual rule break, a pit lane start is the appropriate punishment.

Specifically, the 20-year-old is now onto his fifth internal combustion engine (ICE); fifth turbocharger (TC); fifth motor generator unit-kinetic (MGU-K), and motor generator unit-heat (MGU-H); and third control electronics (CE), all of which are one unit past the allowed allocation of components.

His change to a sixth exhaust system (EX) does not garner a penalty as eight are allowed over the course of the season.