Gasly, Giovinazzi handed grid drops for blocking

Red Bull's Pierre Gasly and Alfa Romeo driver Antonio Giovinazzi have both been handed three place grid drops for the start of tomorrow's Monaco Grand Prix.

Both penalties were for blocking rival cars during today's qualifying session. The race stewards said a share of the blame lay with the drivers' respective teams for not giving them sufficient warning of approaching traffic.

In Gasly's case the alleged blocking took place in the second round when he appeared to hold up Haas driver Romain Grosjean.

"The driver of car eight had to brake hard to avoid colliding with car 10 which was going slowly on a preparation lap, and was on the race line," explained the race stewards in an official statement.

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"At the time car eight was clearly the only car on a fast lap in the area," the statement continued.

"While the stewards accepted that it was unlikely that the driver of car 10 had any opportunity in that sequence of turns to see car eight, the team admitted that they had failed to give any warning.

"The stewards therefore determined that car 10 unnecessarily impeded car 8 and imposed a three grid place penalty. and consistent with past practice imposed one penalty point.”

While Gasly made it through to the final round of qualifying, Grosjean was unable to improve his time before the end of Q2 and was duly eliminated as a result of the blocking incident. Even so, Grosjean was feeling sympathetic toward his compatriot over the incident.

"Poor guy, he wasn’t told anything [by his team," he said. "I think Red Bull massively f**ked up that one. Pierre couldn’t do anything.

"It has got big, big consequences for me because I could’ve made it into Q3 and obviously I ended up in 13th," he added.

The penalty demotes Gasly from fifth to eighth place on the grid. It bumps Kevin Magnussen up to fifth, Daniel Ricciardo to sixth, and Daniil Kvyat into seventh place on the grid ahead of him.

Giovinazzi's incident had occurred early in the first round, where Renault's Nico Hulkenberg arrived at Rascasse to find the Alfa Romeo running slowly in the middle of the track in an effort to get some space ahead of him for his own flying lap.

Both drivers subsequently avoided elimination at the end Q1 and progressed to the second round, but the stewards still found Giovinazzi to have impeded Hulkenberg.

“The driver of car 99 was between turn 16 and turn 18 when he was warned exceptionally late that car 27 was behind him,” the official statement from the FIA explained.

“At the time he was in the middle of the track and clearly impeded car 27.

“The stewards considered that as the driver of car 99 was on a setup lap, he had the opportunity to give more room regardless of whether he received a warning from the team. Further, the team had the opportunity to give a better warning.

“The Stewards therefore determined that the impeding was unnecessary, and ordered a three place drop, consistent with past practice.”

As the Italian had finished in 15th place, the three-place grid penalty means he will now start Sunday's race from 18th on the grid.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc is duly promoted to 15th place with both Racing Point drivers also benefiting from a one place boost putting Sergio Perez in 16th and Lance Stroll up to 17th.

Hulkenberg said he didn't hold any grudges toward Giovinazzi, once again blaming the team for the near-miss.

"It was not ideal, I went to the stewards with that with Antonio," he said afterwards. "Basically the team told him way too late.

"As a driver it's not very forgiving because with these bends here you cannot see a car coming. It was not really his mistake, but it didn't really help my Q1."

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