"30 seconds" would allow time for some cars to go in getting an unfair advantage over those behind? I do agree, 12 seconds is a little short, however by the time the drivers got to the pits there had been sufficient time to inform the driver and crew to wave them through without stopping. As it was under a yellow flag then they wouldn't have been disadvantaged too much.
Good point about the team waving the driver through, but, would that have been a double whammy?
Still incurring a penalty for entering a closed pit lane but not getting the advantage which pitting would give them?
Academic as we shall never know how the stewards would have reacted to such an action, though one might hope they would have been a touch more lenient.
Another point. Why was Giovinazzi's penalty the same? He came in far later, with no excuse of the team not knowing or having time to pass on the information.
But notwithstanding, it certainly led to an interesting second half of the race!
He wasn't going at racing speed round the parabolica, he was on a much tighter line and going much more slower than usual round the curve. He wasn't concentrating on avoiding the stricken car when he passed the light boards as the car was not in his viewpoint untill he had passed both boards and got to the pit entry. The team also failed to realise the pits were closed so it was as much a penalty for them as for the driver. Penalty fully justified imo.
Agreed he was on a tighter line, hence more concentration on the right rather than the left of the track.
I know hindsight is wonderful, but the drivers should have objected before the race as the warning signs are so badly placed as to be at least a distraction to safe driving, if not dangerous.
The circumstances were certainly unusual, such that I, and possibly the drivers, in their peripheral vision, might have assumed the signs displayed "SC" for safety car.
Surely all drivers that qualify and race on the track should be familiar with where things such as pit lane status markers are. Or am I being hopelessly naive?
It's not a case of being aware, its a case of being able to safely see them