Photo: Prema
Ollie Bearman, Juan Manuel Correa and Kush Maini have each been handed a three-place grid penalty for impeding in Formula 2 qualifying in Monaco.
Correa was seventh fastest in the first qualifying group, initially putting him 13th on the grid for both the sprint and feature race, while Bearman and Maini were sixth and eighth in the second qualifying group and so would have lined up 12th and 16th for the two races.
Bearman is now shuffled down to 15th on the sprint race grid, with Correa in 16th and Maini in 19th.
Prema driver Bearman was found guilty of impeding Campos Racing’s Pepe Marti while he was on a flying lap, DAMS’ Correa got in the way of Bearman’s team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Virtuosi Racing’s Maini impeded Rodin Motorsport’s Zane Maloney.
Before finding out about his penalty, Bearman talked about his disappointment with a qualifying result which already put him in a tricky position for trying to score points. He has so far only scored six in the first six races of his sophomore season.
“Tough qualifying,” he mulled. “I was feeling quite good and had a great feeling with the car. The balance was really, really nice. Unfortunately in the last lap, something went wrong in the braking zone, and I didn’t get to do the lap.
“With the evolution of the track and the fact that we have only three laps, there were big steps every time. We need to analyse exactly what happened. I’m sorry for the team because they gave me a car for pole today.”
His rookie team-mate Antonelli qualified seventh, having been fourth fastest in the first group.