d’Ambrosio penalised for FCY offence, loses championship lead

Jerome d’Ambrosio has been penalised for a full course yellow offence in the Santiago E-Prix and has therefore lost his championship lead.

The Mahindra driver took eight seconds to reach the 50km/h full course yellow speed limit.

The time allowed to reach the speed limit is five seconds so d’Ambrosio was penalised with a five second penalty and classified in 10^th.

He had originally finished in ninth place but benefitted from Dragon Racing’s Jose Maria Lopez being penalised. Lopez was given a drive-through penalty converted into a time penalty for using over the maximum power (212.19kW).

D’Ambrosio was then classified in eighth, with the two point jump allowing him to keep him in the lead of the drivers’ championship by a single point ahead of Envision Virgin Racing driver Sam Bird.

But the five second penalty meant he was classified in 10^th place meaning Bird now leads the championship by two points.

DS Techeetah duo penalised

Both DS Techeetah drivers were also penalised after the race with five second time penalties.

Andre Lotterer was penalised for overtaking Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler driver Lucas di Grassi under full course yellow.

The decision of the stewards read: “Car 36 (LOT) overtook car 11 (DIG) under yellow flag conditions in T14. Car 36 (LOT) was also involved in an incident with another car under the same yellow flag conditions.

“Due to this additional incident with another car, Car 36 (LOT) overtook car 11 (DIG) to avoid a collision. Due to the special circumstances of this incident the Stewards consider a time penalty of 5 seconds to be sufficient.”

Jean-Eric Vergne was penalised for a similar reason to d’Ambrosio, although the stewards decision said: “The driver needs 5 seconds to come down to the 50 km/h under Full Course Yellow Conditions.”