Grosjeanu fined three starting places

The race commissioners awarded Romain Grosjean a three-place fine for obstructing Land Norris in the first part of today’s qualifiers.

The Haas racer won the eighth place, but will now start the race from the eleventh place due to a penalty. As the commissioners wrote, Grosjean drove "unnecessarily slowly" and obstructed Norris in the last turn. Nevertheless, this did not prevent the McLaren racer from qualifying for the second part and then also in the fastest group where won tenth place. 

Norris will start the race tomorrow as the ninth, and Grosjean has also taken a penalty point on his racing license for his move. This is his eighth in the last year, which means that only four more separate him until he is banned from the race. In the report, the commissioners wrote that Grosjean claimed that he was overtaken by Sebastian Vettel right at the start of the round, which forced him to slow down a bit to make a big enough difference. As he added, the team did not warn him of the upcoming Norris. The difference in speed between the two racers was supposed to be 136 km / h, which means that Norris had to brake.

"The commissioners understand that the racer with start number 8 did not intentionally obstruct the racer behind him, but it is his job to be aware of the possibility of an upcoming faster racer when driving slowly."