A MERCEDES star was stripped of a win after failing to realise the race was over in a rarely seen incident.
A huge mix up meant the driver went past the chequered flag TWICE and was demoted from first to ninth.
It came in the all-female F1 Academy, which was enjoying it’s first weekend of the season in Saudi Arabia alongside the Formula One action.
And while British 18-year-old Oliver Bearman took the headlines in F1 for his impressive P7 finish for Ferrari, it was a stripped race win for Doriane Pin which sparked controversy in the sister series.
Pin, 20, had dominated on track throughout the weekend, claiming pole in qualifying before winning both of the weekend’s races.
However, Mercedes-backed Pin saw her victory in the second race cruelly taken away in a rarely seen sequence of events.
After taking the chequered flag, Pin’s Prema team were busy celebrating the double win on the pit wall.
But because her engineers were too busy toasting her success, Pin continued to drive around the Jeddah Corniche Circuit at race speed on what should have been the cooldown lap.
Pin went on to complete two full laps before the red flag was shown to stop her.
As a result of her driving much faster than she should have been, Race Control had to impose a drive-through penalty as per the rules, but because it could not be applied mid-race it was applied afterwards.
This converted into a 20-second time penalty and consequently caused Pin to drop to P9 in the standings, allowing Alpine junior Abbi Pulling to inherit the win in race two.
F1 Academy explained: “Doriane Pin has received a drive-through penalty for crossing the chequered flag twice and completing two laps at full speed until the red flag was shown.
“As the penalty could not be served in-race, it has been converted into a 20-second penalty added to her elapsed race time.”
Following the race Pin said a radio issue meant she kept going at race speed as she was unsure whether it was the last lap or not.
She said: “I had a little bit of an issue with the radio. I couldn t hear anything by the engineers so I didn t know if it was the last lap or not. I kept pushing in case it was.”
It had not been evident on the broadcast as her engineer asked: “Doriane, what are you doing? It s the chequered flag.”
To which she replied: “You didn t tell me!”
After having the win stripped away, Pin took to social media to say: “An unfortunate end to an incredible first weekend in F1 Academy, the team and the car were amazing, but a post race penalty drops me to P9.
“Will come back even stronger in Miami. Congrats to @AbbiPulling on P1.”
The change sees Pulling also inherit the lead of the drivers championship with 44 points.
Ferrari-coloured Maya Weug is also now above Pin on 33 points with the Pin herself sitting on 32 points, 14 clear of McLaren-backed Bianca Bustamante.
The next event for F1 Academy will be in Miami between May 3 and 5.
Meanwhile, the next F1 race will be in Australia on March 24.
Complete F1 2024 race calendar – details on every Grand Prix and start time this year
