Leclerc among trio of drivers 'under investigation' in Japan

Charles Leclerc, Guanyu Zhou and Valtteri Bottas are all under investigation for exceeding the maximum lap time during Q1 at Suzuka. Race organisers will look into this further after qualifying in Japan.

To ensure Formula 1 drivers do not drive unnecessarily slowly during the out- or in-laps in qualifying, they must have completed a lap of the 5.8-kilometre circuit within 1:54.0.

Race organisers choose this more often to ensure that the entire field does not pile up in the final sector. In Singapore, this rule did not apply and so we saw an awful lot of traffic in sector 3 there, which hampered drivers who were on a flying lap quite a bit.