FIA confirm grid penalty for F1 star after qualifying incident at Imola

The FIA has confirmed that Alpine star Franco Colapinto has been hit with a grid penalty ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Colapinto is returning to the sport this weekend as a full-time driver, having replaced Jack Doohan following the last race in Miami.

However, during qualifying at Imola, the Argentine racer mistook his team's orders during a red flag, resulting in him being released before a restart time had officially been confirmed following a huge crash involving Yuki Tsunoda in Q1.

The stewards heard from Colapinto and an Alpine representative and found him in breach of Article 12.2.1 i) of the International Sporting Code and in non-compliance with the race director’s event note.

The error appeared to be the result of a misunderstanding from Colapinto, but the stewards felt a sporting penalty was still necessary to impose ahead of Sunday's main event.

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Colapinto hit with grid penalty at Imola Grand Prix

Having heard from Colapinto and his team, an official announcement from the FIA explained: "The team representative stated that he gave the instruction for the car to creep out but not be fully released. The driver misunderstood the instruction and entered the fast lane before the re-start time was officially confirmed in breach of the race director’s event notes."

"Once this was done, it was too late to reverse course and the team instructed the driver to proceed down the pit lane.

"The team argued that there was no sporting advantage gained in this case as there was sufficient time remaining for other teams to perform their run plans as this was the start of the session."

Both Colapinto and his representative reportedly apologised for the inadvertent breach, but the statement concluded: "The stewards considered that the breach was inadvertent, but it did require a sporting penalty to be imposed.

"However, as the breach was unintentional and this did not result in any sporting advantage, we decided to impose a one-position grid penalty.

"A similar breach in different circumstances could entail a more severe sporting penalty in future."

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