Matteo De Palo has been disqualified from the 2026 F3 Qualifying classification at Monza after his TRIDENT car failed a post-session technical inspection, while Mattia Colnaghi and Maciej Gładysz have each received three-place grid penalties.
The Stewards excluded De Palo after finding his diffuser below the minimum permitted height. Separate unsafe-release investigations resulted in penalties for MP Motorsport’s Colnaghi and ART Grand Prix’s Gładysz, with both drivers required to serve their grid drops in Saturday’s Sprint Race and Sunday’s Feature Race.
Théophile Naël and Jin Nakamura have meanwhile received permission to start both races despite failing to set a Qualifying time within the required 107% threshold.
De Palo loses Qualifying result over diffuser height
The FIA Technical Delegate referred De Palo’s No. 6 TRIDENT to the Stewards after post-Qualifying checks identified an issue with its diffuser.
Officials measured the component 3mm below the minimum height required on the left-hand side under Article 3.4.1a of the 2026 FIA F3 Technical Regulations. The Stewards subsequently heard from a TRIDENT representative before determining that the car did not meet the prescribed minimum without justifiable cause.
They therefore applied the standard sanction for a technical infringement and disqualified De Palo from the Qualifying classification. The decision removes the Italian’s original result from Friday afternoon’s session and reshuffles the order behind him.
The exclusion adds another complication to De Palo’s Monza weekend after he was also involved in contact with Campos Racing’s Ugo Ugochukwu during the closing stages of Free Practice.
Colnaghi receives three-place penalty for unsafe release
Colnaghi has also lost ground on the grid after the Stewards investigated an unsafe release involving the MP Motorsport driver and Naël.
Officials reviewed the incident and heard from Colnaghi and an MP representative before concluding that MP Motorsport had released Car 7 into the path of Naël’s No. 1 Campos Racing car in an unsafe manner.
The Stewards consequently handed Colnaghi a three-place grid penalty. Unlike a sanction applied only to the next race, the decision requires him to drop three positions in both the Sprint and Feature Races at Monza.
The penalty follows a strong start to the weekend for MP Motorsport, which had filled the top three places in Free Practice through Alessandro Giusti, Tuukka Taponen and Colnaghi.
Gładysz handed matching penalty
Gładysz received an identical punishment following another unsafe-release incident during Qualifying.
The ART Grand Prix driver came under investigation for a potential breach of Article 28.12(a) of the F3 Sporting Regulations after officials alleged that Car 11 had been released into the path of championship leader Freddie Slater’s No. 5 TRIDENT.
After reviewing the incident and hearing from the driver and team representative, the Stewards determined that ART had released Gładysz in an unsafe manner. They applied a three-place grid penalty for both races, adding another adjustment to the final Monza starting orders.
With Colnaghi and Gładysz both serving penalties twice, their Saturday and Sunday starting positions will each move back three places from the positions generated by the relevant grid procedures.
Naël and Nakamura granted permission to race
Naël and Hitech’s Nakamura have also received Stewards’ decisions after failing to satisfy the 107% requirement during Qualifying.
Neither driver produced a time within the required percentage of the session benchmark, but officials granted both permission to start the Sprint and Feature Races under Article 34.2 of the F3 Sporting Regulations.
They will start from the rear of the field after the application of all other relevant penalties. That leaves both facing recovery drives around Monza, although the circuit’s strong slipstream effect and three DRS zones should provide opportunities to make progress.
De Palo’s disqualification, together with the penalties for Colnaghi and Gładysz, means the final starting orders will differ notably from the initial post-Qualifying classification.
