In this entry, I log penalties after each race, primarily for figuring out who is on the path to a grid drop.

Each race, I will list steward's investigations as indicated on the FIA website and on other reputable sites. For each driver who has been subject to such an investigation, I will list how many reprimands (with "procedural" reprimands such as missing the driver parade in brackets), incidents attracting more than reprimands and investigations where no penalty was given. Reprimands are the lowest penalty the FIA can give, so there is no need for a "penalties less than a reprimand" category.



Try not to worry if you see your favourite driver with a long list of "investigations", for I intend to include any incident where they were cited in the investigation. It may be more helpful to think of it as a "trouble magnet" score than a "trouble causer" one. If your driver (or team) does not appear at all, they haven't been involved in anything that has attracted the stewards' attention so far.



Some penalties do not appear to be put onto the FIA website. As far as possible, I will track these too, linking to where I found out the infraction had occurred.



Teams aren't affected by this directly, but I decided to track their penalties too. Just because I felt like it. Also in the "just because I felt like it" category is the steward tracker, giving who's done how many races and where. Both start counting from the British Grand Prix.

Stewards this meeting:

Tom Kristensen, Garry Connelly and Farhan Vohra. This is distinctly odd as there should be four stewards each race. However, the FIA official documents had become locked before I was able to read them, so it's possible the fourth steward's identity simply wasn't recorded elsewhere.

Once this year:

 Nigel Mansell, Nicholas Deschaux, Lars Osterlind, Dennis Carter, Tom Kristensen, Garry Connelly and Farhan Vohra.

Incidents this race:

Speeding in pit lane

Involved: Lewis Hamilton

Penalty: Fine

Fuel not matching pre-race sample

Involved: Sebastien Buemi

Regulations cited: Article 19.8.3, Technical Regulations

Penalty: Qualifying times cancelled 

Collision between Paul di Resta and Nick Heidfeld (lap 1)

Involved: Paul di Resta and Nick Heidfeld  

Penalty: Drive-through for Nick Heidfeld (unserved due to incident below)

Collision between Nick Heidfeld and Sebastien Buemi (lap 11)

Involved: Nick Heidfeld and Sebastien Buemi

Penalty: 5-place grid drop for Buemi at the next race (Hungary) 

Driver penalty tracker:

Mark Webber

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 0

Investigations: 1 (DRS FP1 - Britain)



Lewis Hamilton

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 1 (Fine for speeding - Germany)

Investigations: 1 (DRS FP1 - Britain)



Jenson Button

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 0

Investigations: 1 (Unsafe release - Britain)



Michael Schumacher

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 1 (10-second stop/go for collision with Kobayashi - Britain)

Investigations: 0

Nick Heidfeld

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 1 (collision with di Resta - Germany)

Investigations: 1 (collision with Buemi - Germany)



Kamui Kobayashi

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 0

Investigations: 2 (Unsafe releae & collision with Schumacher - Britain) 

Paul di Resta

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 0

Investigations: 1 (collision with Heidfeld - Germany)

Sebastien Buemi

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 2 (Non-matching fuel & collision with Heidfeld - Germany)

Investigations: 0 

Team penalty tracker:



McLaren

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 1 (€5000 fine for unsafe release - Button - Britain)

Investigations: 0


Sauber

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 1 (€20000 fine for unsafe release - Kobayashi - Britain)

Investigations: 0  

Force India's performance in testing this week has been remarkable. It's difficult to draw any definite conclusions because there are only 4 teams using 2010 machinery at this time (the other three are McLaren, Virgin and Hispania). However, of those four one would normally expect McLaren to be the fastest, given that their team was second in the championship and the others didn't manage to be in the top 6. Also, there could be some variance concerning how much technologies such as the F-duct and adjustable front wing were being used. Such technologies are easy to switch on and off but cannot be used on 2011 cars.

Despite the above, Force India have had the fastest overall time at all three lunch-times so far. On Monday, despite stopping testing some time before the end of the day, Nico Hulkenburg and Paul di Resta finished Monday second and fourth, Paul then finished third yesterday and as I type Adrian Sutil is still first on the timesheet (Robert Kubica only went faster than him an hour-and-a-quarter before the end of the test - as I started typing the next paragraph down). There's only been one small stoppage (di Resta lost some time at the start of Tuesday) and Force India is close to having 300 laps under its belt. In short, Force India has outperformed even McLaren.

The running is primarily helping Force India understand the tyres better; the new Pirellis are understood to be very high-wearing, so managing that wear will be critical in the success of any team this year. The new VJM-04, due to be launched next week, should give a true barometer of how much slower a 2011 car should be than its 2010 equivalent.

Yesterday, the FIA entry list came out. There were a few surprises, but not very many.

The gaps are:

- 1 at Renault (Kubica's team-mate)

- 2 at Force India (even though I thought Liuzzi had a contract and it sounded like he did too)

- 1 at Williams (GP2 champion Maldonado will be Barrichello's team-mate)

- 2 at Toro Rosso (should be Buemi and Alguersuari, but Ricciardo may end up breaking that duo earlier than Toro Rosso was initially thinking he would)

- 2 at Hispania (if the team survives, it'll be Rich and Wealthy 1 and 2)

- 2 at Virgin (expect Timo Glock to stay, but not be announced until the team knows who the new team-mate will be)

If I had to predict, I'd suggest the seats will be filled like this:

- Renault by Vitaly Petrov (he's probably still bringing in a decent amount of money and is occasionally brilliant)

- Force India by Adrian Sutil (they need a leader and Adrian wants to stay in lieu of alternatives) and Paul di Resta (he's clearly been groomed for the role of Force India racer and the non-confirmation of Liuzzi suggests his time has come). di Resta's reserve seat would most likely be taken by Karun Chandhok.

- Toro Rosso by Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari (they've done the same thing as 2009 - leave confirmation as late as possible as part of a pressure tactic to see who their tester (Daniel Ricciardo) should replace).

- Hispania (assuming survival) by Nico Hulkenburg (Williams probably sending some of Maldonado's sponsorship over there in support) and Bruno Senna (who seems to have reliable funding and wasn't too slow last year). Testing to be done by Yamamoto/Klien/whoever has cash this week.

- Virgin by Timo Glock (they need a leader and Timo is showing himself to be a good one) and Jerome d'Ambrosio (backed by Gravity Management, has some money behind him and was some good in GP2). Reserve driver to be Mikhael Aleshkin (he's likely to bring in money and is Russian, which will please new partner Marussia).