Yves Bacquelaine

**Yves Bacquelaine** is a Belgian senior motorsport official who has acted as a steward at FIA Formula 1 and WEC events and also is chief international steward in the TCR International series. Perhaps his most controversial action of his career was denying Lewis Hamilton victory at the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix and nearly preventing him from winning the World Championship.

## Career

As an FIA-appointed Steward, he (along with Nicolas Deschaux and Surinder Thatthi) penalised Lewis Hamilton out of race victory in the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix, a move slammed by Formula One champion Niki Lauda.

Bacquelaine joined the WEC stewarding team in 2013 and has regularly officiated at 24 Hours of Spa for the national sports body. In 2017 he officiated at both the 24 Hours of Spa and Le Mans in that year. In the latter, he disqualified Rebellion Racing #13 out of a podium finish for bodywork infringement.

### 2017 TCR International Series

In that same year, he assumed the role of chief international steward for the TCR International series along with Swiss Daniel Fausel and Briton Jonathan Ashman (TCR founder). Even then, he was dishing out more damnable penalties.

In Bahrain, Monza, Oschersleben, and Zhejiang, Bacquelaine assumed the role of chairman of the stewards, whilst Fausel acted in this position in Spa, Salzburg and Buriram and Ashman in Hungaroring.

#### Bahrain

His first damnable action came in Bahrain when he, along with Fausel and ASN appointee Eyad Ebrahim, sent pole-sitter Mat'o Homola to the rear of the grid after an engine change after FP1. They were more forgiving towards Giacomo Altoè though, after they had deleted Altoè's best lap time in qualifying, eventually reversing this decision and reinstating the Italian driver's lap time.

#### Monza

At Monza, Bacquelaine assumed the position of chief steward once again, alongside Fausel, and with Giancarlo Merchiori the ASN appointee. After no penalties in qualifying, they gave Ferenc Ficza a 10 second time penalty after race 1 for cutting the Turn 1 chicane and gaining an unfair advantage. Then, for race 2, they demoted Jaap van Lagen to the back of the grid for Race 2, after an engine change after Race 1. However, due to the lateness of the penalty, his original grid position of 11th was left empty.

#### Oschersleben

At this race, for the third time in this year's campaign, Bacquelaine assumed the position of chief steward. This time the international steward who assumed Fausel's usual role was Bahraini Abdul Aziz Al Thawadi and the ASN appointee was Wolfram Lehmann. On this occasion, the first and only driver to be punished was Frédéric Vervisch who was sent to the back of the grid for Race 1, after an engine change, causing him to drop 7 positions from where he originally qualified.

#### Zhejiang

The fourth race in which Bacquelaine was the chairman was Zhejiang, working alongside Rod Parkin of Great Britain and ASN appointee Jiong Chang, and they stripped Tengyi Jiang of his times in Q1, after the team broke the parc fermé rules. Then they penalized Zhendong Zhang 10 seconds for causing a collision with Maťo Homola and sent Denis Dupont to the back of the grid for Race 2 after his car was taken out of parc fermé after Race 1.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/formula-1/exclusive-f1-official-says-lewis-335767