Aston Martin Formula 1 driver Lance Stroll has incurred a rare practice-incident grid penalty on Friday at the Monaco Grand Prix.
The F1 stewards tend to exercise a heavy dose of lenience when it comes to judging practice incidents - whether they be collisions or drivers being impeded - and this also appears to have been the case in this current investigation.
But the severity of the incident was still enough for Stroll to end up with a one-place grid drop for Sunday's race.
The incident took place at the Hotel hairpin, where Stroll had just let Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli past - hugging the inside wall on corner entry - before he suddenly returned to the racing line, unaware that the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc was also coming up fast.
It led to a substantial collision between Leclerc and Stroll, breaking the front wing on the former's Ferrari SF-25 but causing even more substantial damage to the rear of Stroll's Aston Martin AMR25.
That damage necessitated a gearbox change, which meant Stroll sat out the rest of the session. It means he is already on the back foot this weekend, with Monaco a track dictated by driver confidence and practice mileage more valuable than anywhere else on the calendar.
Now, insult has been added to injury in the form of the penalty.
"Car 18 [Stroll] cut across the path of Car 16 at Turn 6, causing Car 16 to collide into Car 18. Car 16 suffered damage as a result," the stewards wrote.
"The driver of Car 18 stated that although the team warned him of the arrival of Car 16, he did not hear the radio message and that led to the incident.
"We considered that Car 18 was wholly to blame for the collision. Car 16 was not in a position to avoid the collision that took place."
Stroll has been assessed a single penalty point in addition to the one-place grid drop - which presumably will have been more severe had the incident taken place in qualifying.
It takes Stroll to three penalty points on his license, with 12 required for a race ban
Aston Martin admitted fault with team principal Andy Cowell accepting blame in the post-FP1 team boss press conference.
"Our radio call wasn't clear enough, is the bottom line," Cowell admitted. We need to learn from that."
