Mahaveer Raghunathan will not be banned from participating in any F2 races despite reaching the threshold of 12 penalty points for the second time this year.

The MP Motorsport driver was already banned earlier this year from the Austrian round of the championship after collecting his first 12 penalty points of the season. Those points were then deducted.

Further penalties, the latest of which came yesterday, have led to Raghunathan again reaching the 12-point threshold at which the F2 rules state a driver will be banned from his next event.

However the FIA confirmed to RaceFans Raghunathan will be allowed to participate in this weekend’s two races at Yas Marina and will not be barred from competing in any further events if he returns to the championships. Two clauses in the rules explain why Raghunathan has been able to escape a ban.

He will not be banned from today or tomorrow’s races as they constitute part of the current event, not his next event. There are no further events in the 2019 championship.

The rules also state “penalty points will remain on a driver’s record until the end of the season after which they will be removed”. This is understood to mean he will be allowed to compete in a further event if he returns to the championship in future.

Raghunathan’s first ban, which was incurred after the first race in France, had already prompted FIA race director Michael Masi to reconsider the regulations around driver suspension. Raghunathan was able to compete in the second race of the weekend after incurring his ban, and was then suspended from the following event.

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Formula 2