Alpine drivers Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly have apologised for losing the team a double points finish at Formula 1’s Mexican Grand Prix as both picked up penalties for yellow flag infringements.
Colapinto and Gasly were eighth and 10th over the line and then promoted to seventh and ninth when Oscar Piastri was hit with a 10-second post-race time penalty for clashing with Arvid Lindblad at Turn 1.
But that haul of eight points has been lost because both drivers were deemed to have not followed yellow flag rules after Piastri’s incident with Lindblad.
Colapinto picked up a 10-second time penalty for passing a single waved yellow flag and not slowing down enough.
Colapinto and Alpine “presented telemetry and photographic evidence claiming it demonstrated that [Colapinto] had complied with the regulations which state that the driver must reduce speed and be prepared to change direction”.
However, this “failed to satisfy” the stewards that Colapinto had sufficiently reduced his speed when passing the single waved yellow flag.
He was cleared of speeding through the double waved yellow flag in the previous sector because of “sufficient doubt that the driver had sufficient warning in order to comply with the requirements”.
But the 10s penalty for his single waved yellow flag infringement dropped him to 15th.
Team-mate Gasly got an even harsher penalty as he was given a stop-and-go penalty that was converted into a 30s time drop, leaving him 17th as the last classified driver.
Alpine and Gasly “claimed that the driver had made a significant reduction in speed in the double yellow flag sector; however, a detailed examination of the telemetry and that of other cars passing through that sector led the stewards to conclude that the small reduction noted was not sufficient to satisfy the requirements of the regulations”.
Gasly’s penalty is bigger because it’s an infringement under double waved yellow flags, so he also gets two penalty points.
Though Alpine had argued its drivers’ case in the stewards’ hearings, both apologised in the team’s post-race press release.
“I am sorry to the team for the yellow flag infringement, it is my error which has obviously stopped us from scoring points,” said Gasly. “There are a few things for us to look at on our side as I felt we could have been much higher up had we not had some of the issues. It’s not been a great day for me, a lot to reflect on.”
“I am sorry to everyone at the team for what happened under the yellow flag,” said Colapinto. “While it is difficult to really understand, it is my mistake in the car.”
Their penalties move Liam Lawson, who started from the pitlane, into seventh place, meaning six more points for Racing Bulls that move it to 35 clear of Alpine in their battle for fifth in the constructors’ championship.
The ruling also promotes Gabriel Bortoleto and Isack Hadjar into the points in eighth and ninth.
And it means Ryo Hirakawa scores a point on his surprise debut for Haas in 10th place.
