BAKU, Azerbaijan — F1 championship leader Oscar Piastri avoided a grid penalty for Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix despite failing to slow for yellow flags during second practice.
Piastri had failed to slow accordingly after Pierre Gasly had gone off at Turn 1 during the session.
The Australian was summoned to see the stewards on Friday evening for the incident, with yellow flag violations often being a slam-dunk grid drop.
However, the stewards explained that mitigating circumstances existed on this occasion because Piastri was beyond the marshal post when the cautionary yellow flag was first shown.
In the verdict, the stewards wrote: “A yellow flag was displayed at Marshal Post 1.2 and green light was shown at light panel 3. Drivers had been instructed that if they see a green light they must take the action required under a yellow flag condition even if they had not been shown the yellow flag. In this case, the driver had passed Marshal Post 1.2 when the yellow flag was shown for the first time but was able to see the green light at light panel 3.
“The yellow flag was withdrawn less than one second after the green light became visible to the driver. Therefore technically a breach of the regulations has occurred however because of the mitigating circumstances above, the penalty imposed is reduced to a reprimand.
“This is consistent with previous similar incidents.”
The explanation about a green flag is due to how marshal posts and panels are spaced out between a circuit. As a green flag can only be shown to mark the ending of a yellow flag, drivers know that seeing one ahead means they must drive accordingly until that panel has been passed.
Piastri leads McLaren teammate Lando Norris in the championship by 31 points with eight races remaining. Their McLaren team can wrap up the constructors’ championship this weekend. Qualifying for the race takes place on Saturday afternoon.
