Russell slapped with F1 penalty at Austin GP after cheeky Leclerc radio message

21 October 2023 , 19:42

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George Russell was penalised by the F1 stewards (Image: Hasan Bratic/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

George Russell was handed a three-place grid penalty for the United States Grand Prix Sprint after Charles Leclerc reported him over the radio in eye-catching style.

The incident occurred during the Sprint Shootout earlier on Saturday. Leclerc was on a flying lap but Russell was driving his Mercedes far more sedately when his Ferrari rival caught up with him on track.

Instead of moving off the racing line, Leclerc had to swerve to his left to avoid making contact. But he lost time as he did so and the stewards tend to take a dim view of such incidents.

Indeed, Leclerc knew immediately that Russell was going to be in hot water. "And penalty for Mr Russell, thank you," he declared over the radio with no small amount of sarcasm, making it clear to race control that he was not willing to let the incident slide.

And the stewards concurred that a penalty was necessary. After hearing from both drivers, they determined that Russell had unnecessarily impeded Leclerc and that it was a serious enough offence to warrant a three-place grid drop.

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"Car 63 [Russell] entered the last two corners preparing for his flying lap at the end of SQ1 with Car 16 [Leclerc] closing in quickly," read the official decision document. "Whilst the team did inform the driver about the closing car a few seconds in advance, there was no further information directly before Car 63 entered Turn 19 with Car 16 right behind.

"Car 63 did not move from the racing line in or after Turn 19 and therefore unnecessarily impeded Car 16. The Stewards note that, irrespective of any information coming from the team, it is the driver's responsibility to ensure that no other cars are unnecessarily impeded."

As per the sporting regulations, any offences made in the Sprint Shootout can only be punished in the Sprint race which follows. As such, Russell will serve his grid drop in the short-form race and will still start Sunday's Grand Prix in the same place as he qualified on Friday.

That was fifth quickest. Team-mate Lewis Hamilton managed to go third fastest while Leclerc put his Ferrari on pole. Second-placed Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz in fourth were also able to go quicker than Max Verstappen, who had to settle for just sixth on the grid.

The triple champion put in a lap time which pushed him up to provisional pole, but it was soon taken away from him. Race control judged that he had gone outside the white line at the penultimate corner, meaning he had exceeded track limits and so that lap was duly wiped from the timesheets.

Daniel Moxon