Photo: Roger Gascoigne
Fourteen of the FIA Formula 3 Championship drivers have been handed grid penalties following chaotic scenes in qualifying at Monza.
The 30-car field was split into two groups for qualifying to try and avoid a repeat of the chaos seen last year – and at the most recent round at Spa-Francorchamps – as drivers try to avoid giving their rivals a tow down the long straights.
However, before any timed laps were set in the first group, a train of slow-moving cars formed between the two Lesmo turns with nobody willing to take the lead of the pack.
This resulted in a collision when Kacper Sztuka arrived and slowed on the racing line as he looked to join the rear of the queue, only to be hit from behind by Laurens van Hoepen. Both were ruled out of the session, and Sztuka has been given a five-place grid penalty for Saturday’s sprint race – which he will start from the pitlane anyway after failing to set a time in practice or qualifying. Sztuka has also had three penalty points added to his record.
A total of eleven drivers have been given four-place grid penalties for the sprint race for their involvement in the Lesmo train. This includes championship rivals Leonardo Fornaroli and Gabriele Mini, who ended the group first and third respectively and are demoted from 12th and 10th to 16th and 14th on the sprint race grid, plus their fellow title contender Luke Browning who now lines up 17th.
Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak had been due to start the race from second and is now sixth, with Mari Boya, Joshua Dufek, Piotr Wisnicki, Noel Leon, Max Esterson, Noah Stromsted, and Tommy Smith also all penalised.
In making their decision, the stewards revealed that speeds in the queue dropped as low as 2 km/h.
“The stewards acknowledged that there will be occasions during practice and qualifying sessions for cars to slow significantly off-line, potentially to a stop, in order to avoid impeding another car. Such circumstances are examples of driving ‘necessarily’ slowly. In this case, however, it was entirely ‘unnecessary’ for any of the drivers to have slowed to such an extraordinarily slow speed. It was only done in the hope of gaining a sporting advantage from a tow.”
The subsequent Group B session was also affected by similar driving tactics, and ART Grand Prix drivers Christian Mansell and Nikola Tsolov were both given three-place grid penalties for impeding others. Mansell was judged to have compromised fellow outside title contender Dino Beganovic in the Parabolica, while Tsolov was found to have forced Alpine Academy stable-mate Sophia Floersch into abandoning a lap at the exit of Ascari.
Tim Tramnitz remains on reversed-grid pole position for the sprint race, with Beganovic moving up onto the front row. Sebastian Montoya and Santiago Ramos move up from row four to row two.