Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
There was a host of penalty decisions following FIA Formula 3 qualifying at Monza, including the removal of five drivers from the results.
All of the offenders were from Hitech GP and Rodin Carlin, with Hitech having all three of their drivers excluded from the results of the session while Carlin had two of the drivers get the same punishment and the other copped a grid penalty.
The reason for the disqualifications was a violation of parc ferme regulations, specifically the changing of tyres after the end of the qualifying session, and those five drivers’ cars have been given permission to start in both races this weekend.
Hitech’s Gabriele Mini had been the highest placed of the five in qualifying, having gone eighth fastest, with team-mates Luke Browning and Sebastian Montoya in ninth and 13th. Carlin’s Francesco Simonazzi provisionally qualified 21st, while team-mate Ido Cohen did not even set a laptime prior to his disqualification due to being spun around by team-mate Ollie Gray (who was handed a three-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race and two penalty points for the offence).
Also without a time on the board were Prema’s Dino Beganovic (due to track limits abuse getting his laptime deleted), Jenzer Motorsport’s Nikita Bedrin (who missed the session entirely) and Gray. All have been given permission to race.
Gray carries over a five-place grid penalty from the previous round for causing a collision, and Trident’s qualifying pacesetter Oliver Goethe also has a penalty from Spa-Francorchamps. His is a 10-place drop for having “personnel on the grid after the 15-second signal”.
That puts Goethe 22nd on the grid for today’s race, and Gray in 25th. Beganovic is the highest placed of the drivers without a qualifying laptime, as he will start 23rd.
As a reversed grid is used for Saturday’s sprint race, it means Browning and Mini would have started fourth and fifth. MP Motorsport’s Franco Colapinto was only 15th fastest, but is now 12th in the final results of qualifying and therefore inherits reversed-grid pole ahead of team-mate Mari Boya, ART Grand Prix duo Gregoire Saucy and Nikola Tsolov, and Jenzer’s Taylor Barnard.
Following practice, Boya and Prema’s Zak O’Sullivan were reprimanded for “driving slowly on the racing line on the entry to turn 11”, while Trident’s champion-elect Gabriel Bortoleto, Van Amersfoort Racing’s Caio Collet and Campos Racing duo Joshua Dufek and Pepe Marti were reprimanded for “weaving on the racing line between turns 10 and 11”.
O’Sullivan was also reprimanded for overtaking Dufek in the queue to make practice starts, which he blamed on a clutch engagement issue.