Charles Leclerc loses three positions for the Sprint race
While he finished the Sprint Shootout in 6th position, Charles Leclerc will ultimately start from 9th place after receiving a penalty for impeding Oscar Piastri.
Tough day for Charles Leclerc in Austria. The Monegasque driver had already struggled during the Shootout Sprint, unlike in Friday’s qualifying session. He ended up in 6th position, just behind his teammate Carlos Sainz. However, he will start 9th on the grid for the Sprint race this afternoon, as he has received a three-place penalty from the FIA for impeding Oscar Piastri at turn 9.
The Ferrari driver was under investigation for this move. The commissioners heard the drivers and examined the position/marking system data, videos, timing, telemetry, team radio communications, and onboard videos.
Oscar Piastri stated that while approaching turn 9, he noticed that Charles Leclerc was driving slowly. The Australian driver from McLaren had to brake, reducing his speed by approximately 45 km/h compared to the previous lap. This was confirmed by the officials who consulted the telemetry data from his car. It was confirmed that he lost around 0.5 seconds in this mini-sector (5.3s compared to 4.8s).
On his part, Charles Leclerc declared that the last message from his team was when he was approaching turn 4 (“Piastri at 6 seconds”) and he saw the McLaren car in his rearview mirrors while he was at turn 8 and Piastri was at turn 7.
The Ferrari representative stated that the team “could have done better” in communicating Piastri’s fast approach. The drivers responded, “If I had been warned, I could have reacted earlier.”
The FIA concludes that “although it is not entirely Charles Leclerc’s fault and the lack of communication from the team is the major contributing factor, a grid position penalty must be imposed as Piastri was ‘unnecessarily hindered’, as there is no doubt that the situation could have been avoided.”
