Piastri loses front row start for Imola F1 race

A three-place penalty on the grid cost Oscar Piastri his front row at the Formula 1 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.

McLaren driver Kevin Magnussen was found to have impeded Haas' car during the first stage of qualifying.

During the crucial final stages of Q1, Magnussen was struggling to get out of the bottom five, but found Piastri's McLaren in his path at the Variant Tamburello Chicane.

Piastri was at the top of the right-hand side on the exit of the turn while Magnussen was approaching from behind, prompting Magnussen to take a shot of understeer and swerve wide.

“The stewards accepted Piastri’s explanation that due to the layout of the track in that location, he could not see Magnussen until it was too late, at which time he tried to accelerate away in order to get rid of Magnussen as quickly as possible. Magnussen admitted that it was difficult for the drivers to see the cars behind them.” “In many parts of the track, including here.”

However, stewards noted that McLaren did not warn Piastri of Magnussen's rapidly approaching car until he was too close to Piastri to “safely avoid obstruction”.

Their ruling continued: “In reality there was a speed difference of around 140km/h and Magnussen was only around 40-50 meters behind at the time meaning Piastri was in the middle of the corner when Magnussen caught up directly behind Piastri.

“Moreover, it was clear that Magnussen was on a fast lap since exiting Turn 19.”

The stewards also compared the incident to other cases of a driver quickly approaching a slower moving car, and found that those slower moving cars were warned much sooner than Piastri was.

The ruling concluded: “Traffic management for slower cars is a very important part of the team/driver combination, especially in Q1. In this case the stewards decided that the lack of sufficient warning caused ‘unnecessary obstruction’.”

This drop of three places on the grid means that Piastri will now start from fifth on the grid and his teammate Lando Norris will start on the front row alongside Max Verstappen instead.

Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were promoted to third and fourth, while George Russell remained closing a 0.001 second gap to Sainz meaning he would start from sixth instead of fourth.

Piastri's explanation to the stewards is consistent with what he told Sky Sports F1 after qualifying: “I didn't see that [back]I looked in the mirror and did not see anyone coming, and here you are coming with a big difference in speed. I looked for a long time and did not see anyone, and he told me too late that [Magnussen] “You were on a whirlwind tour and you tried to get going but you didn't have enough options at that point.”

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella accepted the penalty and admitted: “We need to improve our processes, as we move forward, and hopefully tomorrow we can regain the positions we lost today on the grid.”

For his part, Magnussen expressed his regret at the fact that it is “the fourth or fifth time this year that we have witnessed a qualifying move on the important lap.”

He continued: “I don't think we're doing anything different from anyone else in terms of timing. It's just bad luck – but now it seems like a bad excuse!”

“We just have to be patient and hope it stops soon, because it's having a really big impact on my season.”

Magnussen brushed off suggestions that it is difficult not to jam these cars – “It's very difficult – but you have to do it.”

“We always seem to have the guy who's not doing the same thing as everyone else, and then I find him in a bad place on the track. It's happened so many times this year.

“It's one of those cases where you can't change the way you come out of the pits, because you're coming out with everyone else – but when you have that problem, out of seven heats, four or five times, you start to wonder is there something I'm doing? “