Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack has labelled Lance Stroll’s Chinese Grand Prix penalty “very harsh.”
As the field bunched up for the safety car restart at the turn 14 hairpin, Stroll hit the back of Daniel Ricciardo’s Alpha Tauri causing the Australian to retire from the race with diffuser damage.
His fellow countrymen Oscar Piastri was also caught up in the incident. He sustained damage but hobbled on to finish in eighth place.
The steward’s felt Stroll was fully to blame for the accident, awarding him with a 10- second penalty.
‘Things like this happen’
Mike Krack felt the decision was made too quickly without fully understanding everything that happened in what he called a “chain reaction.”
“A very, very quick decision today without really understanding. I thought it was very, very fast and very harsh, very quick decision,” said Krack.
“I think it was a chain reaction at the end of the day. You saw Fernando [Alonso] locking and another car behind and I think everyone was a little caught out there.
“I would have liked that this would have been looked at in a little bit more of a detailed way. We tried to discuss it, but the verdict was very quickly that Lance was to blame, and he got a 10- second penalty additional to the front wing damage.”
Krack added: “These situations are created at the front. Now you can always say, you need to be more careful.
“But on the other hand, if you’re too careful, and you have the restart and you lose more than one car length – everybody says, ‘are you asleep?’
“Things like this happen at different tracks. You remember the incident we had at Mugello where there were a lot of cars involved.
“This is always the erratic movement that happens on a safety car restart, and we will have some of these incidents every year and it will continue to be.”
Ricciardo was particularly furious with Stroll over what happened saying the Canadian “made his blood boil.”
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