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Robert Shwartzman has been handed a five place Formula 1 grid penalty that he's highly likely never to serve.
Shwartzman stood in for Zhou Guanyu in first practice for the 2024 Mexican Grand Prix, fulfilling the team's obligation to run a rookie driver in two FP1s this year after his Zandvoort FP1 appearance.
Ferrari academy driver Shwartzman is rated highly by Sauber's F1 CEO Mattia Binotto, having worked with him when Binotto was team principal at Ferrari.
But Shwartzman is not in contention for a 2025 F1 seat, having sat on the sidelines since graduating from F1's junior ladder when he finished runner-up to Oscar Piastri in Formula 2 in 2021. A move to IndyCar is far more likely.
Shwartzman now has a five-place grid penalty to serve if he ever unexpectedly makes his F1 debut. That's for overtaking under the yellow flags that Ollie Bearman and Alex Albon's crash prompted.
The stewards found Shwartzman passed a single waved yellow and then a double waved yellow before passing Yuki Tsunoda's RB "while travelling at speed".
They acknowledged Shwartzman wasn't taking part in the rest of the Mexican GP weekend but wanted to keep the punishments consistent.
"The penalty is the usual penalty for passing under a double yellow, and while the stewards recognize that the driver is not scheduled to start the race, they have applied the consistent penalty," they wrote.
When Shwartzman was asked by The Race what happened, he explained: "It was a bit late, the message on the radio, I was doing my push lap and I saw the yellow flags and the smoke.
"Yuki was already stopped because he was on a cooldown [lap] so he just stopped on the side, so I just flew by just not to crash into him, and because I overtook him there there was a stewards investigation.
"They understood fully that at that stage everything was happening so fast that there was not time basically for me to react.
"I know it's not allowed to overtake under yellow so I fully acknowledge the rule, but at that stage everything was happening so fast."
Shwartzman says he hopes his 2025 programme will be announced soon, something "he's really looking forward to", and while that won't be in F1, he hopes to still be connected in some capacity.
No further action on Bearman/Albon
The stewards also decided to take no further action for Bearman and Albon's collision at Turn 9.
"Bearman was on a cooldown lap with the team letting him know about cars behind," the verdict read.
"Albon was on a fast lap. Just after Turn 9, Bearman, who was recharging and thus going relatively slow, pulled to the right.
"When Albon came around T9, he had Bearman in front of him and lifted. Because the car was under significant loading in the corner, it caused him to oversteer.
"Both drivers agreed that Bearman’s positioning was not unreasonable, but was
unfortunate as it was close to Albon’s line. Had Bearman been slightly further down the track it would not have resulted in an incident.
"All parties agreed that it was a racing incident."
