FIA confirms Oscar Piastri punishment after Italian GP breach

McLaren driver Oscar Piastri has been given a reprimand by the FIA for failing to follow the race director’s instructions in FP2 at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

The red flag was thrown after 10 minutes of FP2 at Monza after Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the Mercedes driver, spun and got beached in the gravel at Lesmo 2.

Oscar Piastri reprimanded after FIA holds Italian GP investigation

Ahead of the restart, Piastri was released into the pit lane before the FIA communicated an official restart time.

The potential breach was quickly noticed by Max Verstappen’s Red Bull race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, who alerted his driver to the incident.

Lambiase said over team radio: “Piastri at the head of the queue, Max. He did leave without the resumption time, so it’s being looked into.”

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Antonelli and his Mercedes team-mate George Russell were involved in a similar incident at the Bahrain Grand Prix earlier this season.

The Mercedes pair were both handed a one-place grid penalty for taking to the pit lane before the FIA had communicated a restart time after a red flag following an accident involving Haas driver Esteban Ocon.

Piastri and a McLaren team representative were required to report to the stewards at 18:20 local time at Monza.

The stewards’ confirmed a short time later that Piastri has escaped with a reprimand.

The stewards’ report read: “The Stewards reviewed video and timing evidence.

“Car 81 was released from its garage at 17:13.50 whereas the re-start of the session was confirmed by Race Control on timing page 3 at 17:14.09, this clearly being in breach of item 22.2 of the Race Director’s Event Notes.

“The team admitted during the hearing that they made a mistake as they reacted to the “track clear” message instead of reacting to the message indicating the re-start time of the session.

“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.”

Piastri enters the Italian Grand Prix weekend with a 34-point lead in the Drivers’ standings after taking his seventh victory of the F1 2025 season at last weekend’s Dutch GP at Zandvoort.

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