Oscar Piastri’s Italian Grand Prix weekend has taken a predictable turn after the Italian Grand Prix stewards handed the McLaren driver a three-place grid penalty for impeding Liam Lawson in qualifying.
The sanction drops Piastri from third to sixth on Sunday’s grid, with Ferrari pair Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, plus Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, each gaining one position.
The incident occurred late in Q2, when Lawson was attempting to complete his final flying lap. Piastri, meanwhile, was emerging from the pits and approaching the opening chicane when he slowed to let Verstappen through.
Lawson was tucked closely behind his Red Bull team-mate, however, leaving Piastri little room to react as the McLaren found itself ahead of the second Red Bull through the chicane.
Stewards explain the penalty
The FIA stewards accepted that Piastri had been placed in a difficult situation and had not deliberately interfered with Lawson. Nevertheless, they concluded that the Australian had unnecessarily impeded the Red Bull driver and applied the standard three-place sanction.
Their full statement read:
"The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 81 (Oscar Piastri), the driver of Car 30 (Liam Lawson), team representatives and reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video, timing, telemetry, team radio and in-car video evidence," the FIA decision reads.
"On leaving the pits, the driver of Car 81 was advised that “Verstappen, Lawson and Sainz just crossing, Sainz has pitted. Just Verstappen and Lawson, watch out for them as you join”. The driver of Car 81 stated that he was not alerted to the fact that VER and LAW were on push laps but realised as he was almost at turn 1 that VER was on a push lap. He slowed significantly and kept to the right to allow VER to pass but was unable to do anything to avoid impeding LAW who was close behind.
"The Stewards accept that with the information he had, and the situation he was placed in, the driver of Car 81 had, at this stage, no other options available and hence, inadvertently, and also unnecessarily, impeded Car 30.
"Therefore the standard penalty of a drop of 3 grid positions is imposed."
Piastri had already acknowledged before his hearing that the situation had caught him by surprise, admitting he had not known Lawson was approaching.
“Yeah, I was coming out of the pits and, I mean, the speed difference out of the pits is so, so big here,” Piastri said at the FIA press conference. “So, yeah, I don't really know where he came from. I need to review with the team.”
Lawson left frustrated – and Red Bull compromised
The timing was particularly costly for Lawson, who was already under pressure of missing the Q1 cut. The Kiwi had been hoping to put together a late lap, only to encounter Piastri at Turn 1.
“Yeah, I mean, it just wasn't ideal,” Lawson said. “We obviously left it to the end there to try and put a lap together. So I was pretty hot after just one call. And then, yeah, obviously not ideal getting blocked at turn one.
“But I mean, the goal was to try and focus this weekend on the race anyway. Obviously, we've got the penalty for tomorrow. So yesterday we were very long runs focus anyway.”
Lawson was already destined for the back of the grid because of new power-unit components added to his pool of hardware. But his Q2 elimination also denied Red Bull a potentially valuable weapon: the tow that could have helped Verstappen in Q3 around Monza's long straights.
Verstappen consequently had to go it alone and qualified sixth.
For McLaren, what looked like a brilliant third-place qualifying result has therefore become a considerably less comfortable starting position – all courtesy of one badly timed encounter at the first chicane.
Italian Grand Prix - Qualifying results
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