FIA race director Michael Masi says that the Russian GP stewards decided that the original Formula 1 penalty points awarded to Lewis Hamilton was "inappropriate" after a post-race review.
Hamilton was awarded two five-second time penalties for conducting two practice starts outside the designated zone beyond the pit exit, and both came with an extra penalty point for his licence.
That put him on 10 penalty points for the ongoing 12 month period, with two more incurred before the Turkish GP automatically triggering a race ban.
However after the race the stewards spoke to Hamilton and the Mercedes team, and elected to
rescind the original points penalties levied.
Instead, the FIA fined the team €25,000 on the basis that the driver had been told he could use that location for starts.
"The stewards after the race heard from the team, and the driver of car 44," said Masi.
"Lewis and Mercedes spoke to the stewards, at which point it was actually a team instruction to Lewis where he could perform the practice starts.
"On that basis the stewards have just now rescinded the penalty points on both those decisions, because they thought it was inappropriate - and as a result, have fined the team €25,000 for that instruction.
"Effectively, yes, it was him driving the car.
"However, a contributing factor was that his team instructed him to do so at that point, and therefore, they saw fit to revise their decision accordingly."