Alfa Romeo, AlphaTauri and Red Bull have all been punished by the stewards for speeding in the pit lane during practice ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix.
Throughout practice, the speed limit in the pit lane is set at 60kph, and is then raised to 80kph for the remainder of the weekend, and Yuki Tsunoda were found to have gone over 16kph over the limit, earning their respective teams a fine of 1,000 euros.
Bottas’ infringement came after his one and only install lap in FP1, before issues with the car meant that he missed the entire session of valuable running time in the Principality.
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Sergio Perez went 3kph over the limit, earning Red Bull a fine of 300 euros.
The Mexican put 61 laps on the board on Friday as he ended both sessions ahead of team-mate Max Verstappen, splitting the Ferrari pair of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in FP1 before ending FP2 in third.
He was nearly four tenths of a second down on Leclerc in the second hour, so admits that the deficit has slightly taken him by surprise.
“Good two sessions,” he said after practice.
“The long run was a bit difficult with the traffic, but all in all we seem to be lacking a bit compared to the Ferraris, they seem to be very strong today so we will analyse everything and see what we can do.
“They seem to be pretty strong today.
“Yeah, we were surprised, we were expecting a bit of a gap but not such a gap so [there is] plenty of work to do and we’ll see, I mean Q3 is what matters.”
Verstappen ended both sessions P4, and he also highlighted the gap the Austrian outfit need to close up to the Scuderia.
“Overall, we’ve been trying a few things round here to see how the car was behaving,” he explained.
“I was a little bit happier in FP1 than FP2, and I mean of course if you have a little bit of a better balance, you can attack a bit more and then of course your lap time comes out a bit better.
“But yeah, clearly compared to Ferrari we have to find a little bit more, now it’s all about just trying to fine tune my balance as well.”
Despite a red flag in second practice due to a crash for Daniel Ricciardo, the Dutchman is satisfied that he was able to get some good long runs in.
“I think so, I think it was quite okay,” added Verstappen.
“We got a little bit of an understanding.”
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As for the new cars, Sir Lewis Hamilton spoke of an “incredible amount of bouncing” during the opening hour in Monte Carlo, and Verstappen attests that the nature of the new cars under the current technical regulations means that the drivers feel the bumps more.
“You can feel the weight of the cars,” he said.
“[They are] a bit heavier, a bit slower, a bit more bumpy as well with these cars because they are stiffer, but it’s alright, it’s okay.
“It’s a bit more difficult with the visibility but still very hectic to drive around here!”