Photos: Formula Motorsport Ltd & Red Bull
Alex Dunne has been disqualified from second place and Nikola Tsolov has been disqualified from victory in Formula 2 and Formula 3’s feature races at the Red Bull Ring.
Both drivers have lost their podium results due to the same technical infringement, relating to front plank thickness.
Wear during the race led to the plank on Dunne’s car being below the minimum thickness of four millimetres at two of the three areas where measurements are taken, and his disqualification promotes Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli and DAMS’ Jak Crawford to second and third.
Dunne’s loss of 18 points also means he goes from being six behind MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor, who he lost the championship lead to in the feature race, to now being 24 down on him. Crawford and Fornaroli are third and fourth in the standings, and are now two and four points behind Dunne respectively.
F2’s stewards also handed Van Amersfoort Racing’s John Bennett a 10-second penalty and two penalty points post-race for contact with Prema’s Sebastian Montoya at turn three.
Campos Racing’s Arvid Linbdblad and Pepe Marti both got two penalty points in addition to the 10s penalties they received in-race for collisions with MP’s Oliver Goethe and ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins respectively.
There are title fight implications from the post-race penalties handed out in the FIA F3 Championship too.
Tsolov had finished over six seconds clear of the pack for his third win of the season and to close to within one point of Trident’s Rafael Camara in the title fight.
The minimum thickness for the front plank in F3 is 4.5mm in F3, but 4mm readings are accepted when wear is taken into account. However one side was found to be below that on Tsolov’s car, and Campos “noted that a section of the plank was missing at the edge on the same side that was found to be noncompliant”.
They believed the impact that would have caused that would damage would have also contributed to it being worn down further on that side, but could not provide evidence of an event in which that damage was picked up.
Hitech GP’s Martinius Stenshorne is the new winner of the feature race, with MP’s Tim Tramnitz and Campos’s Mari Boya completing the podium. Tramnitz is now Camara’s closest title rival, 24 points behind Camara and four ahead of Tsolov. Stenshorne is fourth in the standings, 22 points behind Tsolov.
AIX Racing’s Brad Benavides and VAR’s Theophile Nael enter the top 10, and therefore earn points, after ART GP’s Laurens van Hoepen was disqualified from ninth place due to post-race readings revealing three of his tyres to be under the minimum pressure allowed.
AIX Racing’s Nicola Marinangeli, who finished 27th on-the-road, received 10s in penalties for exceeding track limits five times and Hitech’s Jesse Carrasquedo Jr was fined €500 (£427) for not re-attaching his steering wheel after exiting his car in parc ferme post-race.