Unfortunately it has been confirmed that Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc has been given a three-place grid penalty for impeding Oscar Piastri during today’s Sprint Shootout. As a result, the Ferrari driver will drop from P6 to P9 for this afternoon’s Sprint at the 4.318-kilometre Red Bull Ring in Spielberg.
The stewards verdict read: “The driver of Car 81 (Piastri) stated that as he approached Turn 9 he saw that Car 16 (Leclerc) was travelling slowly and had to brake, reducing his speed by approximately 45 km/h over the previous push lap.
“This was verified by the Stewards referencing the telemetry of Car 81. It was confirmed Car 81 lost approximately 0.5 of a second in that mini[1]sector (5.3s v 4.8s).
“The driver of Car 16 stated that the last call he had from his team was when he was approaching Turn 4 (“Piastri 6 seconds”) and that he saw Car 81 in his mirrors as he was in Turn 8 and Car 81 was in Turn 7.
“The Team Representative of Car 16 stated that the team “could have done better” in communicating the rapid approach of Car 81 and its drivers stated that “If I had been warned I could have done something earlier”.
“Accordingly we determine that although this was not entirely the fault of the driver, and that the team’s lack of communication was the major contributing factor, a grid position penalty must be imposed as Car 81 was “unnecessarily impeded”, because there is no doubt that the situation could have been avoided.”
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