Round 8 post-Qualifying penalties

Nine drivers have been handed penalties following today’s FIA Formula 3 Qualifying session at Monza.

Théo Pourchaire, Alex Smolyar, Pierre-Louis Chovet, Lirim Zendeli, Ollie Caldwell, Sebastián Fernández and David Beckmann have all been served five-place grid drops for Race 1 on Saturday.

All seven penalties have been given for driving unnecessarily slowly before Turn 11, which forced the cars following to slow down and caused a potentially dangerous situation.

Smolyar has also been given a further three-place grid drop for driving unnecessary slowly before Turn 2, which forced the entire field to slow down and caused a potentially dangerous situation. This means that the ART Grand Prix has been given a total grid drop of eight places.

Zendeli has also been given an additional five-place grid drop for impeding Liam Lawson at Turn 2, meaning that the Trident driver has a total grid drop of 10 places.

Finally, PREMA duo Oscar Piastri and Frederik Vesti have been given three-place grid drops after it was found that they drove unnecessarily slowly and impeded Jake Hughes. The stewards determined that the pair of them failed to move out of the racing line, going side-by-side with one another, which blocked the track for the HWA driver, who was on a flying lap.

With all of the penalties applied, Lawson inherits pole position, ahead of Matteo Nannini, who will start from second. Hughes was been promoted to P3, ahead of Calan Williams and Logan Sargeant.

Pourchaire will now start from sixth, ahead of Igor Fraga, Alex Peroni, Vesti and Beckmann.

Smolyar has dropped to P11, ahead of Zendeli. Piastri falls to 15th, and Fernandez 16th. Caldwell will start from P20 and Chovet from the back of the grid.