Because of his poor judgment at the start of the Belgian Grand Prix last weekend, the driver Romain Grosjean of the Lotus team caused a huge accident that eliminated two championship contenders from the race and could have caused serious injury.
Grosjean was barred from the Italian Grand Prix this weekend and, so that he might be more careful next time, he was fined 50,000 euros, almost $63,000.
Welcome to the financially hazardous job of driving at the pinnacle of world auto racing. Although rarely discussed, the system of imposing fines has long existed in this richest series in world auto racing, and in most other series as well.
"The fining system has been around as long as I can remember, and I have 37 years of experience in Formula One," said Charlie Whiting, the race director for the series, who is appointed by the FIA to operate each Grand Prix. He works with the race stewards who ultimately decide on the penalties.
Fines are issued for rules infractions on and off track. The stewards decide on the amount, based on past fines and on the circumstances of the infraction.
Teams must pay their fines to the International Automobile Federation, the sport's governing body based in Paris, by bank transfer within 48 hours. Although the driver pays if he was judged to have been responsible for the infraction, the team makes the transfer and the money is deducted from the driver's paycheck.
The money goes into the operating budget of the FIA, which writes the rules and then polices for infringements at the races.
The fines may be harder for drivers to pay than for teams, but both are designed to deter
future rule infractions.
The Sauber team, for example, had to pay 25,000 euros at the British Grand Prix in July for a dangerous release of the car during a pit stop, and Jean-Eric Vergne, a driver at the Toro Rosso team, was fined the same amount for causing a collision at the European Grand Prix in June.
"It came out of my pocket," Vergne said. "It's a huge fine, especially since I'm not earning a lot of money, so it's not nice. I've never been fined before. But I did a mistake, I paid it cash."
Most people involved in the series think the fines work, because although most drivers and teams have a lot of money, the assumption is that no one likes parting with any of it.
"It functions pretty well, because even if it is a small sum for the salary of a driver, they don't like it when you touch their money, like anyone," said Eric Boullier, director of the Lotus team, speaking before the sanction against Grosjean, his driver. Noting that the team did not like paying, either, he added, "It is always money that is not spent on the car."
Although the rule is that he who errs pays, teams sometimes pick up the tab for staff members who are fined.
It is more difficult for a team with a small budget to pay than it is for top teams.
"It's clear that $1,000 to one man is very different to $1,000 to another man and/or team, so maybe there is an argument that says that the penalty is viewed more harshly by some than by others," said Graeme Lowdon, a director of the low-budget Marussia team.
The fines for unsafe maneuvers, he said, are usually clear cut and the responsibility of the driver.
Lowdon said he thought the system usually worked well, but he noted that in some cases it was problematic, as with fines for an unsafe release of the car during a pit stop.
He worried that some teams might be willing to pay the fine in order to have the advantage - gaining a spot ahead of another car, for example - that a quick but dangerous release of a car might bring.
Nico Hulkenberg, who drives for the Force India team, has the record for pit-lane speeding this year: He was fined 7,200 euros when he was caught driving at 95.5 kilometers an hour in a 60 kph zone. Pastor Maldonado, a driver at the Williams team, paid 1,200 euros for speeding at 66 kph; at a previous race, he paid 1,400 euros for going 66.1 kph.
Compared to Grosjean and Vergne, Maldonado got off easy after causing a collision at the British Grand Prix in July: He was fined only 10,000 euros. And Sebastian Vettel, the defending world champion, received only a reprimand for causing a collision at the Canadian Grand Prix in June.
For his error, Grosjean accepted the stewards' decision, apologised and called it a learning experience.
Lowdon noted that even in the series below Formula One, the fine system exists, although the amounts are smaller.
But earlier this year in Nascar, the Richard Childress Racing team's signal caller, Danny Stockman, was fined $10,000 because of an open vent hose on the car. And at the Daytona 500 this year, the Hendrick Motorsports crew chief was fined $100,000 for illegally modified parts on the car.
Still, no other racing series, let alone any other sport, has fined a team $100 million, as the FIA did the McLaren Mercedes team in 2007 for using the secret technical data of the Ferrari team.