Four F1 stars handed penalties for US GP as rules broken just hours before race

Fernando Alonso was one of four F1 drivers sent to the pit lane at the United States Grand Prix after the team was found to have breached the Parc Ferme rules.

Aston Martin and Haas decided to pull both cars out of Parc Ferme hours before the United States Grand Prix to replace the unit.

However, the solution comes at a cost.
This means Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg will start the race from the pit lane, with Aston Martin teammates Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll also competing.

This comes after both teams made significant improvements to the American circuit to bolster their respective seasons.
However, in the sprint format, practice time was limited to one hour to learn as much as possible about the new car.

This resulted in the updated car not performing as expected during Saturday’s qualifying and sprint.
To improve their chances at the Grand Prix, both teams decided to change their stipulations.

But that means removing cars from the parking lot if they break the rules.
As a result, all four drivers left the pit lane.
The marshals confirmed the results with each runner’s individual decision document.
It emerged that both teams had sought permission from FIA technical representatives before making any changes to their settings.
In any case, with all four drivers having previously finished 14th or lower, the team clearly felt that changing the car setup would give them a better chance of success in the race.
Haas team principal Günter Steiner said after the sprint that he was concerned the upgrades would not have an impact. The team intentionally didn’t add any parts to the car for several months so they could focus all development efforts on this concept change.
But Magnussen and Hulkenberg failed to spark the sprint race with poor qualifying on Friday night.
“Today didn’t go as planned,” Steiner said.
“There’s still a lot of work to do but we’ll have to see how we do tomorrow because we’re not happy with what happened initially.

“We discovered a few things and went in the wrong direction, but after one practice session, two qualifying sessions and a short race, it’s hard to come to a conclusion.
“But now we have to find out more because the upgrades are not what we expected.”

In addition, Aston Martin driver Alonso spoke about the team’s difficulties, saying: “It was a bit risky to move the updates to a sprint format.
With a variety of tests between the two cars, you can expect a great FP1 and we had a very confusing FP1.
“I think I’ve fallen behind since then.”