Ricciardo also gets the F1 screw for daring to race

Ricciardo the latest to get the F1 screw

The F1 Stewards proved once again they do not want real racing. They want the drivers to parade and not race. His all-action approach made him one of the stars of the French Grand Prix, but Daniel Ricciardo will leave the French Riviera without a single point after the stewards at Circuit Paul Ricard handed him two post-race time penalties, dropping him from P7 to P11.

The Renault driver had an eventful race, recovering the two places he lost at the start to run eighth as the Grand Prix reached its conclusion.

But with McLaren’s Lando Norris slowed by a hydraulics problem ahead, Ricciardo smelt the chance of more points and reeled him in. Though Norris defended P7 valiantly, Ricciardo got a run on the approach the Mistral Chicane and attempted a pass around the outside.

He couldn’t get his Renault stopped in time, though, and ran off track. As he rejoined, Norris had to take avoiding action. The stewards investigated the incident after the race, and deemed he re-joined “unsafely forcing another driver off track". As punishment, they handed him a five-second time penalty and two penalty points on his superlicense.

But that wasn’t the end of the bad news for Ricciardo. Though he had passed Norris, Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen managed to get through. Ricciardo gave chase and re-passed Raikkonen, but did so having crossed the white lines denoting the edge of the track – and the stewards duly handed him another five-second penalty, saying he “left the track and gained a lasting advantage". He also received a further penalty point on his license.

With the extra 10 seconds applied to his race time, Ricciardo drops from seventh down to 11th and out of the points, with Raikkonen, Ricciardo's Renault team mate Nico Hulkenberg and Norris promoted to P7, P8 and P9 respectively. Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly, meanwhile, is promoted into the points in 10th.

It means Renault lose their double points finish in their home race, while Ricciardo fails to score his third consecutive points finish.

Revised Results

Note – Vettel scored an additional point for setting the fastest lap of the race. Ricciardo originally finished seventh, but received a five-second post-race time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, plus an identical penalty for failing to rejoin the track safely.