Teams now pay the fines for speeding
For two Grand Prix now, drivers no longer pay fines when they are caught speeding; their teams now handle them.
At the beginning of the season, notably in Australia, the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association (GPDA) was surprised to see drivers having to pay fines for speeding – despite an agreement with the FIA that seemed to have been reached to prevent this from happening. The drivers had negotiated with the FIA to no longer pay fines in exchange for an increase in the fees for the F1 super license.
According to *Autosport*, this issue has recently been resolved between the different parties, so since the Bahrain Grand Prix, in the event of a driver speeding in the pits, it is their team that pays the fine. The fine structure has also been revised, as previously drivers paid 200 dollars per kilometer/hour over the maximum limit. Now, the teams only pay “just” 100 dollars per kilometer/hour over the limit, with a maximum cap of 1000 dollars for a fine.
Thus, the Lotus team had to pay a “mere” $1,000 fine following Kimi Räikkönen’s speeding in the pit lane in Spain. The Finn was clocked at 93.2 km/h instead of 60, which, with the old system, would have required him to pay a $6,600 fine.
