Daniel Ricciardo will serve a three-place grid penalty at the Miami Grand Prix in two weeks after being found guilty of a safety car infringement in China.
Ricciardo was summoned to the Stewards after the race in Shanghai as he was alleged to have overtaken Nico Hulkenberg under safety car conditions.
The Australian's race came to an end a handful of laps after sustaining damage when he was collected by Lance Stroll at the Turn 14 hairpin at the first of two restarts.
Hulkenberg moved ahead of Ricciardo after the contact was made, before Ricciardo opted to retake the position when another safety car was immediately called to clear up the debris, as well as move Yuki Tsunoda's damaged-stricken car from a separate incident.
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The stewards detailed that Hulkenberg's overtake before the safety car line was permitted due to the accident, while Ricciardo's manoeuvre to re-gain the position was not.
“The driver of Car 3 [Ricciardo] admitted that he overtook Car 27 [Hulkenberg] deliberately but he explained that he felt that he could do so because Car 27 had overtaken him under safety car before on Lap 28,” read a statement from the stewards.
“We note that Car 27 was permitted to overtake Car 3 on Lap 28 because of Article 55.8.
“There was no justifiable basis for Car 3 to overtake Car 27 while the race was under Safety Car conditions.
“We accordingly imposed a 10 second time penalty on Car 3. As Car 3 was unable to serve the penalty due to retirement, we imposed a 3-grid place penalty to Car 3 for the next race in which the driver participates.”
Ricciardo's grid drop will be served for the grand prix, rather than the sprint race, in Miami.
Hulkenberg cleared
The section of the sporting that clears Hulkenberg of wrongdoing falls under Article 55.8.
It reads: “With the exception of the cases listed under a) to h) below, no driver may overtake another car on the track, including the safety car, until he passes the Line (see Article 5.3) for the first time after the safety car has returned to the pits.
“The exceptions are:
h) If any car slows with an obvious problem.”
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