Ferrari's Belgian Grand Prix began with a headache the team did not see coming: a fine for both cars over a tyre-handling slip that had nothing to do with lap time. The FIA's technical delegate, Jo Bauer, reported that Ferrari had electronically registered two sets of dry tyres per car for return to Pirelli after opening practice, but never physically handed them back. The tyres "were not physically returned to the appointed tyre supplier before the start of FP2," Bauer noted, a breach of the sporting regulations that applied to both Lewis Hamilton's and Charles Leclerc's cars.
The stewards settled on money rather than grid places. Ferrari was fined 5,000 euros per car, 10,000 euros in total. "The competitor (Scuderia Ferrari HP) is fined 5000 euros," read the verdict for Hamilton's car. "The stewards heard from the team representative of car 44 (Lewis Hamilton) who acknowledged the breach and attributed it to an oversight."
Fred Vasseur, for his part, was relaxed about it. Asked before the ruling what he expected, the Ferrari team principal said with a laugh that "it will be a fine" - a prediction that proved exactly right.
Whether it should have stopped there is where the disagreement starts. Sky Sports analyst Bernie Collins argued the punishment was too light given the tyres were physically missing, not merely mis-logged. "In my opinion, that needs to be more of a slap on the wrist, it needs to be a penalty," Collins said, pointing to precedent: in 2016, the team then known as Force India was handed a one-place grid penalty for Nico Hulkenberg over a similar tyre-return infringement.
The stewards clearly saw this case differently, treating an administrative oversight as less serious than a sporting advantage. Pirelli inspects returned sets for damage and safety concerns, so the physical hand-back matters, but there was no suggestion Ferrari gained anything on track.
The fine capped a busy Friday for the stewards at Spa. Lance Stroll was handed a grid penalty for a power-unit component change, Isack Hadjar took one for an engine swap, and Lando Norris arrived already carrying a 10-place drop of his own. Esteban Ocon, meanwhile, collected a suspended fine after a separate procedural mistake that prompted an apology from Haas.
For Ferrari, 10,000 euros is loose change, and the story will be forgotten by qualifying. But Collins's point lingers: when the rulebook is applied inconsistently from one year to the next, even a trivial fine becomes a talking point.
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*Originally published on [Newsformula.one](https://newsformula.one/article/ferrari-fined-for-bizarre-spa-tyre-blunder-was-it-too-soft). Visit for full coverage.*