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Charles Leclerc will serve a three-place grid penalty for the Austrian sprint after being found guilty of impeding Oscar Piastri.
The incident occurred during the first segment of the sprint shootout at the Red Bull Ring, with McLaren driver Piastri baulked by Ferrari’s Leclerc as he approached Turn 9.
There appeared to be a mitigating circumstance as Leclerc was returning to the pits and the Turn 9 exit feeds into the pit lane.
But Leclerc was found to be at fault, albeit due to a lack of communication again from the Scuderia. After qualifying sixth, he will now start ninth.
A stewards’ report 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 minisector (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.
“It should also be noted that this penalty is to apply ONLY to the sprint and should the driver be unable to contest the sprint at this event, the penalty shall carry over to the next sprint (and not the grand prix).”
It is the second instance this season that Ferrari has been criticised for its poor communication.
In qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix, Leclerc was penalised three places after impeding Piastri’s McLaren team-mate Lando Norris.
The stewards observed then that “Leclerc’s team failed to give him any warning about Norris’ approach until Norris was already directly behind him”.
