Oscar Piastri has been reprimanded for an incident during Italian FP2. Image: XPB Images
The McLaren driver was investigated after joining the pit exit queue too early following a red flag stoppage triggered by Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who spun into the gravel at Lesmo 2.
With the session halted, teams were required to wait for official confirmation of the restart time before moving into the fast lane — a protocol Piastri failed to follow.
The breach was quickly flagged over Red Bull team radio by Gianpiero Lambiase, Max Verstappen’s engineer, who told his driver: “Piastri at the head of the queue, Max. He did leave without the resumption time, so it’s being looked into.”
Both Piastri and a McLaren representative were summoned to the stewards, where the team admitted they had reacted to the “track clear” message rather than the official restart notification.
The stewards accepted the explanation and issued a reprimand, noting that because the error occurred in practice no advantage was gained.
“The Stewards acknowledge that, in contrast to prior incidents of similar nature happening in Qualifying, no significant sporting advantage could potentially be gained as this happened in free practice and therefore consider a reprimand to the competitor to be appropriate,” the decision document stated.
The ruling marked a softer stance than in similar cases earlier this year.
Antonelli and Mercedes team-mate George Russell were each handed one-place grid penalties at the Bahrain Grand Prix for an almost identical error in qualifying, when both moved into the pit lane before the restart time had been confirmed.
Elsewhere at Monza, Gabriel Bortoleto was cleared of wrongdoing after overtaking Liam Lawson under yellow flags.
Stewards determined the Brazilian had insufficient time to react and that his view was obstructed, ruling that although a breach had occurred, “no penalty needs to be applied.”