Esteban Gutierrez has been handed a 20 second time penalty after his collision on-track with Romain Grosjean.
The Sauber driver seemed to have weaved into the path of the Lotus driver when trying to effect a pass on him en route to the braking zone of the Rettifilo Chicane.
The pair touched, with Grosjean losing a bit of his front wing while Gutierrez was also on the receiving end having got a rear puncture and was left limping back to the pits.
The stewards investigated the incident and concluded that Gutierrez was fully responsible for an avoidable collision despite Sauber’s claims that Gutierrez was struggling with brakes, giviing him a post-race drive-through penalty which equated to the addition of 20 seconds onto the Mexican’s race time and was demoted to 20th from his eventual 19th place finish.
“It was not on purpose to move my line, definitely, but this is how it was – an unfortunate moment but we have to move forward.” Gutierrez said when responding to questions fielded by the media on the incident and insisted that the brake problems were “an inconsistency that sometimes you cannot predict”.
Sauber team principal and CEO Monisha Kalterborn described her driver’s incident with Grosjean as “unnecessary” and saw her team continue their pointless streak, which now stretches to a record 13 races.
