Kimi Antonelli was penalised by the Formula 1 Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix stewards after the race, having been found guilty of violating track limits more than three times during the event.
The decision does not change the outcome of the race for the championship leader, but it could have had consequences had he managed to finish the race.
Antonelli started third and spent much of the race chasing first Lewis Hamilton and then George Russell. After the Ferrari driver committed to a different strategy, Antonelli closed in on his Mercedes team-mate and the pair battled throughout the second half of the race.
Antonelli found his way past Russell with just five laps to go, but long before that his race engineer Peter Bonnington had informed him that he had already accumulated three track limits strikes and urged him not to commit any further infringements.
As Lando Norris was chasing the Mercedes pair throughout the race, his race engineer Will Joseph also informed the McLaren driver that Antonelli was at risk of a penalty and encouraged him to apply more pressure to the youngster.
Later, Joseph told Norris that Antonelli had definitely exceeded track limits more than three times and would therefore receive a penalty, despite no such information having been communicated by race control.
The penalty was only confirmed after the race, with the stewards issuing Antonelli a five-second sanction. They also revealed that one of the infringements had not been detected during the race, meaning Antonelli only received a black-and-white warning flag after his fourth offence rather than after his third.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images
“The stewards reviewed video evidence,” the verdict said.
“The car left the track four times during the race without justifiable reason. The stewards acknowledge that the driver did not receive a black/white flag after his third infringement but rather after his fourth infringement as one earlier infringement was only detected later in the race.
“However, based on the current regulations and driving standards guidelines, this does not exempt the driver from complying with the regulations.”
That means that had Antonelli managed to finish the race in second place, he could potentially have lost positions after the race to Russell or possibly Norris, had they remained within five seconds of the Italian.
The stewards also urged the FIA to “revisit the current procedures and guidelines as soon as possible”, acknowledging that there may be ambiguity in the current process.
With Antonelli retiring shortly after overtaking Russell, the penalty has no practical effect, as post-race time penalties do not carry over to the next event in the form of grid penalties.
Despite recording his first retirement of the season, Antonelli still leads the championship. Hamilton now trails the Italian by 41 points, while Russell sits third, a further nine points behind.
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