Antonelli gets grid penalty for yellow flag infringement

Kimi Antonelli has been given a three-place grid penalty for not slowing sufficiently under yellow flags in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen spun at the final corner towards the end of Q3, with Antonelli passing the incident but still managing to improve his lap time and qualify a provisional fourth. The stewards investigated the situation after the race, and while they found Antonelli had lifted off upon seeing the yellow flag, they felt his higher speed past the point Verstappen had gone off proved to be an insufficient response.

“The driver of Car 12 [Antonelli] stated that on seeing the yellow flag and light panel, he lifted off the throttle earlier than his previous push lap,” the stewards’ decision read. “This was verified by the telemetry.

“However the reduction in speed occurred for a very short period, and in fact the car’s speed when passing the scene of the incident involving Car 3 [Verstappen], was slightly higher than that on the previous push lap.

“The mini sector time was only 0.03 second slower than his best time for that mini sector, and whilst, because he had lifted 16 meters earlier, he was 14 km/h slower entering the yellow flag sector, but was 3 km/h faster when passing the incident site due to less application of the brakes entering the corner. The FIA representatives noted that the speed reduction in the mini sector was less than 1%.

“The stewards considered this incident to be different to other incidents that have resulted in no further action, because unlike those cases, there was no significant speed delta through the mini sector compared to the driver’s previous fastest time under similar circumstances.

“The recommended penalty according to the penalty guidelines, for this offense, is a drop of five grid positions. However in mitigation of penalty, we considered that the driver did make a reduction in speed, albeit, in our determination, an insufficient and unsustained one. Further, the driver had limited time and distance to react. Hence a lower penalty is applied.”

The penalty drops Antonelli from fourth to seventh on the grid, and has no impact on Lewis Hamilton’s own grid penalty that demotes him from second to fifth. Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen move up to the second row as a result, with George Russell in sixth between Hamilton and Antonelli.