Cordeel one point away from Formula 2 race ban after latest penalty

Formula 2

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Formula 2 driver Amaury Cordeel will receive an automatic ban if he collects one more penalty point over the 21 remaining races this year.

The Van Amersfoort driver has reached a total of 11 penalty points over the course of just seven races so far.

He was already on nine prior to the first of this weekend’s two races in Barcelona today. He was issued a further two penalty points for being out of position prior to the start of today’s race.

Drivers are expected to be in grid order by the time they cross safety car line one, which Cordeel failed to do after getting away slowly from his 15th-place grid spot. If drivers are not in their correct order at that stage, they must enter the pit lane to start the race, as Calan Williams was forced to do after stalling in the pole spot.

Cordeel was issued a 10-second stop-and-go penalty and two penalty points, bringing his total to 11. Should he reach or exceed 12, he will be immediately excluded from the next event.

His penalty points tally has been largely accrued by failure to follow race control’s instructions.

Having incurred no penalty points at the opening round in Bahrain, Cordeel was given four for a single offence in Jeddah. He was found not to have slowed sufficiently for double yellow flags and a red flag during qualifying.

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The stewards warned Cordeel and the Van Amersfoort Racing F2 team, both of which are new to the championship this year, to improve adherence to flag warnings.

Cordeel added five more penalty points at Imola, bringing his total to nine, after repeatedly exceeding track limits. The driver was given an initial five-second penalty for exceeding track limits more than three times, which came with one penalty point. He was then penalised again with a ten-second penalty and two penalty points for the fifth track limits violation and finally given a drive-through penalty and a further two penalty points for exceeding track limits a sixth time.

At the time of issuing the penalty, stewards agreed that it was possible Cordeel’s team had not relayed warnings about track limits to him in time for him to realise his error. However, it also warned that “it was his sole responsibility to drive the car within the track limits and that “repeated offences may bring into question his ability to control the car.”

Cordeel has also faced four penalties for pit lane speeding during his first four weekends in F2. At Imola he entered the pit lane at over 99kph, exceeding the speed limit by 39.2kph. These pit lane speeding penalties did not result in penalty points.

The last F2 driver to be banned from a round was Mahaveer Raghunathan, who collected enough points to incur two bans over the course of the 2019 season.

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Hazel Southwell
Hazel is a motorsport and automotive journalist with a particular interest in hybrid systems, electrification, batteries and new fuel technologies....

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6 comments on “Cordeel one point away from Formula 2 race ban after latest penalty”

  1. Say what you want about that points system. But I feel in F2 and lower formulae, it works very well. It is immediately known who are the miscreants and I feel they will improve their behavior.

    1. Yes and no, I do feel like the penalty points are more for making (slight) errors in following of instructions than for dangerous driving in racing situations

  2. Barry Bens (@barryfromdownunder)
    21st May 2022, 19:58

    one more penalty point over the 21 remaining races this year.

    Dang…

  3. some racing fan
    21st May 2022, 21:10

    If you can’t collect actual points, go for penalty points! The way this guy is going he will be the successor to Lord Mahaveer…

    1. With this rate he probably will surpass the number of penalty points of Lord Raghunathan and get two race bans this season.

  4. These pit lane speeding penalties did not result in penalty points.

    Makes a mockery of the points system. He should already be missing this weekend!

Comments are closed.