Oscar Piastri has been hit with a three-place grid penalty at Monza after almost causing a crash with Liam Lawson.
It was a disappointing end to what had been a successful day for the Aussie, who qualified for the Italian grand prix in third behind George Russell, with Pierre Gasly taking a shock pole.
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The stewards intervened post-race to punish Piastri after he was found to have impeded Lawson.
Piastri slowed approaching the first chicane during the closing stages of Q2, allowing a Red Bull car to pass.
However Piastri mistakenly believed it was Lawson completing his qualifying lap, but it was actually Max Verstappen.
So the McLaren star then picked up speed going round the corner, which did actually impeded Lawson, who had to brake suddenly to avoid a collision.
“Dude what the f***,” said Lawson immediately after the incident.
Stewards quickly investigated and hit Piastri with the penalty after speaking to both drivers and their teams.
“On leaving the pits, the driver of Car 81 (Piastri) was advised that ‘Verstappen, Lawson and Sainz just crossing, Sainz has pitted, just Verstappen and Lawson, watch out for them as you join’,” a statement read.
“The driver of Car 81 stated that he was not alerted to the fact that VER and LAW were on push laps, but realised as he was almost at Turn 1 that VER was on a push lap.
“He slowed significantly and kept to the right to allow VER to pass, but was unable to do anything to avoid impeding LAW who was close behind.
“The stewards accept that with the information he had, and the situation he was placed in, the driver of Car 81 had, at this stage, no other options available and hence, inadvertently, and also unnecessarily, impeded Car 30.”
Both drivers were calm in their assessment of the situation after the race, with Lawson not placing blame on Piastri for his failure to get through to Q3.
“It was a tricky situation to manage,” said Piastri.
“I was coming out of the pits and got told that Lawson and Verstappen were coming, but I kind of had to jump on the brakes pretty heavily to get out of Max’s way, and then I was just stuck in a very awkward spot with Liam.”
“To be honest, we should really have the speed to get through [to Q3] anyway. We had quite good speed yesterday, and then today, we’ve lost some performance,” added Lawson.
“In general, the goal was to obviously try and help Max in Q3 and I never got there, so it’s not what we planned for, but I think our Qualifying was a bit compromised anyway.”
Lawson’s penalty benefitted Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen, who were all bumped up a place.