FIA announce punishment verdict for Red Bull star after technical issue at Mexican GP

Red Bull academy driver Arvid Lindblad was summoned to the FIA stewards after stepping into Max Verstappen's car for FP1 at the Mexican Grand Prix on Friday.

Lindblad was called in to explain his actions after being accused of impeding Pato O'Ward, who had stepped in for F1 driver Lando Norris, with Lindblad eventually given an official warning – but no sporting penalty.

The stewards' decision called Lindblad's actions 'objectively, potentially dangerous', but added that he appeared to have been fed incorrect information by his team, possibly as a result of a GPS system outage during the session which was rife with technical issues.

The key part of their decision read: "Notwithstanding, the actions of LIN constituted an unnecessary impeding and were, objectively, potentially dangerous. As the incident occurred during free practice and had no sporting consequences, the stewards decided to issue a warning to the driver and the team."

Mekies confirms unusual tech issue

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies spoke to Sky Sports F1 after the session and confirmed the GPS outage, explaining: "All the teams lost GPS in the session, so it was difficult with traffic.

"We took the decision to leave Arvid on low-ish fuel to not give him the complication of high and low fuel. He did a very good job. It's so difficult to jump in. The pace is there, so not much to argue against that."

Lindblad finished the session with the sixth fastest time, an impressive performance and comfortably the best of the nine rookies who took to the track for the early afternoon session.

In fact, the F2 star even set a faster time than his more experienced team-mate Yuki Tsunoda – a confidence booster for the teenager, although probably not what the under-pressure Tsunoda had hoped for coming into the session.

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