One of the strangest punishments in Formula 1 history was pronounced in Imola. Kimi Raikkonen was kicked out of the points for an offense in which several rules contradict each other. That should be changed by the next race.Even the stewards found it difficult to justify this punishment. You spoke of several contradictions in the rules and at the end referred to the passage in the regulations that has been used the longest. Kimi Raikkonen received a ten-second stop-and-go penalty. Since it was only pronounced after the race, the Finn got 30 seconds added to his racing time. That threw him from ninth place to 13th place out of the points.
What happened? When the 17 remaining cars were sent into the formation lap for the restart in Imola, no one in the field knew whether the race would start standing or flying. Not even FIA race director Michael Masi.
When he decided on the rolling start for safety reasons, Bernd Mayländer was just turning into Turn 7 in the safety car. The track was still too wet next to the ideal line for Masi to risk a standing start. 30 minutes earlier, Valtteri Bottas and George Russell had impressively demonstrated what can happen with such mixing ratios.
>Raikkonen was trapped
Kimi Raikkonen involuntarily made it clear how smooth it was. At the beginning of the formation lap he sailed through the gravel bed in the Tamburello curve and lost places in the process. The Finn was no longer eighth, but tenth.
Article 42.6 therefore applies initially. Raikkonen should have returned to its original position by the safety car 1 line at the pit entrance. Otherwise he was threatened with starting from the pit lane. This is the normal procedure for a standing start. But the race management had decided on a rolling start in the middle of the formation lap. The teams found out when Mayländer switched off the lights on the safety car at turn 10 and the abbreviation "RS" appeared on the FIA's information screen. From this moment, Article 42.12 comes into play. This means that once the lights on the safety car go out, no driver is allowed to overtake in front of the control line at the start and finish.
So Raikkonen was trapped. He could no longer take his old position in front of the safety car 1 line. If he had overtaken, he would have rule 42.12. injured - overtaking behind the safety car with the lights off. In holding the position, he was in conflict with Section 42.6 for failing to restore the original order of the field. The team advised the driver not to overtake. It would have been too dangerous on the still damp track. When you wanted to reassure yourself with the race management, the management remained silent.
Team manager Beat Zehnder points out that in difficult conditions like in Imola or in Sao Paulo 2016, in terms of safety, it makes no sense to ask the drivers to take their old place, but otherwise to punish them for not overtaking . A rival team informed Alfa Romeo that they would have protested if Raikkonen had resumed his old seat.