Kimi Antonelli has avoided a grid penalty after the stewards decided to absolve him of any blame for two separate incidents following qualifying. It means Mercedes will begin the Australian Grand Prix with both their cars on the front row of the grid, Antonelli starting behind pole sitter George Russell.

Russell was dominant in the first qualifying session of the new Formula 1 season, while Antonelli‘s pace was also impressive given his car had been rebuilt after a crash in final practice just a few hours earlier. But his provisional result was under threat as the stewards confirmed two separate post-qualifying investigations.

Antonelli and Mercedes were first cleared of any wrongdoing after a report of a pit lane violation. It was dismissed by the stewards who explained that, although a team mechanic touched the car while out of its garage, the circumstances meant it was obviously the case that the car was not being worked on in the pit lane, which would have constituted a penalty.

Having decided to take no further action, the stewards explained: “Car 12 [Antonelli] was waiting to blend into the fast lane. Car 12 had inched slightly into the fast lane with a very small portion of the front wing in the fast lane. A team member assisted in pushing the car back a little to allow for that part to not hinder the fast lane.

“While the car was touched by the team member (to push it back), this did not constitute a breach of Article B1.6.1e which prohibits work being done on the car, which clearly was not the case here. In fact, the team member was taking steps to not hinder the other drivers in the fast lane, which was entirely appropriate in the circumstances.”

And it has now also been confirmed that Antonelli will suffer no sporting penalty despite his team being found guilty of releasing his car from the garage in an unsafe manner. Mercedes were handed a £6,500 fine for failing to remove a cooling fan from the car before Antonelli was sent out into the pit lane. The fan fell from the car at the first chicane, with part of it stopping on the track where it was run over by Lando Norris‘ McLaren.

The stewards said: “The fan assembly disconnected from the duct of Car 12 [Antonelli] as it negotiated turn one, split apart and one section of it bounced off the track onto the gravel at the exit. Another section of the fan assembly dislodged onto the track at turn two and was later struck by the front wing and tyre of another car causing debris to be strewn over the track, damage to the front wing of the other car and the session had to be red flagged to remove the debris.

“The team explained that an incident in an earlier session in which Car 12 had sustained significant damage meant that the division of labour within the team had to be changed to repair the damage within a short time frame.

“Usually, a separate team member would have responsibility for inserting and removing each fan but the need to address legacy issues from the earlier incident during the session meant that the team member responsible for the fan on that side of the car was occupied on another task and the removal of the fan before the car was released from the garage was missed.

The team (and the driver) were unaware that the fan had not been removed until the incident was noted by race control. The stewards determine that because Car 12 left its garage with a piece of equipment still attached, it was released in an unsafe condition and the stewards impose a fine on the competitor accordingly.”