Ollie Bearman has been handed a 10-place grid penalty for the F1 Monaco GP after overtaking Carlos Sainz under red flags.
Following a red flag in FP2 at the F1 Monaco GP as Oscar Piastri crashed at turn 1 that required his front wing getting removed from that spot, Bearman passed Sainz at La Rascasse. As it is Monaco, a penalty for this was always going to be heavy.
Barring a stunning qualifying performance, Bearman will start the F1 Monaco GP at the back of the grid.
FIA stewards verdict
“Well prior to the overtake, the session had been red flagged. The team informed the driver rather late, just before the overtake happened.
“However, it is clear from the video footage that there was a light panel directly in front of the driver which showed the red flag; and the dashboard also indicated the red flag well before the overtake took place.
“The regulations require the drivers to ‘immediately’ reduce speed and proceed slowly back to their respective pits (Article 2.5.4.1 b)). The same regulations caution drivers of the fact that in a red flag situation, ‘overtaking is forbidden’ and that drivers should ‘remember that race and service vehicles may be on the track…’
“The driver claimed that he saw the red flags but decided not to slow down abruptly because he felt that slowing down abruptly would have been more dangerous and that what he did was a safer way of handling the situation.
“We disagreed with his decision to not take steps to slow down sufficiently to avoid overtaking another car and instead proceeding slowly back to the pits, as required.
“The whole purpose of requiring drivers to slow down immediately is for safety – they will not know what is in front of them or the reason for the red flag being shown. This is particularly so in a track like Monaco.
“In the circumstances, there is no mitigating factor for the fact that he overtook a car under red flag and we therefore imposed a penalty of a 10-grid place drop for the race and two penalty points.”
