Oscar Piastri has escaped with a reprimand for an infringement during FP2 at Formula 1’s Italian Grand Prix as the stewards made an important distinction to a penalty issued earlier in the season.
Piastri and McLaren faced the Monza stewards after FP2 for entering the fast lane in the pitlane prior to the restart time for the session, following a red flag for Kimi Antonelli’s off.
The stewards found Piastri was released from his McLaren garage at 17.13.50, but the restart time wasn’t confirmed by race control until 19 seconds later.
This was “clearly in breach of item 22.2 of the race director’s event notes” which states “if the free practice session or qualifying session is suspended, cars may only enter the fast lane after the re-start time is confirmed via the official messaging system”.
McLaren admitted it made a mistake as it was reacting to the ‘track clear’ message after the red flag rather than the official restart time.
“The stewards acknowledge that, in contrast to prior incidents of a similar nature happening in qualifying, no significant sporting advantage could potentially be gained as this happened in free practice and therefore consider a reprimand to the competitor to be appropriate.”
This is likely in reference to Franco Colapinto picking up a one-place grid penalty for the same offence at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola.
Crucially, Colapinto committed the offence during qualifying where a sporting advantage can be gained from it, hence the difference in penalty.
No action for Bortoleto passing under yellows
The stewards also investigated Sauber driver Gabriel Bortoleto for passing Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls car in FP2.
The stewards found Lawson “partially blocking the driver's view of the yellow flag”, so Bortoleto “did not have sufficient time to react to the yellow flag before overtaking [Lawson]”.
The stewards also took into account that Bortoleto reduced his speed significantly after passing the first yellow flag and passed the site of Antonelli’s incident “at a slow speed”.
Therefore, they decided no penalty was necessary.
