Racing Bulls driver Yuki Tsunoda has escaped punishment after an investigation into his grid position at an early restart of the Monza race.

On a lap 6 restart, which followed a red flag for Charles Leclerc's accident on lap 2, Tsunoda appeared to park out of his grid box as he took up his 14th position on the starting grid.

Race control wasn't comfortable with Tsunoda's position and swiftly added an additional formation lap, with the race stewards opting to revisit the case after the race, summoning Tsunoda and team representatives for an "alleged breach of Article B5.9.4 of the FIA F1 Regulations – Start Procedure infringement at 15:41."

That meant Tsunoda was under threat of losing his hard-earned point for 10th place, his first point of the season on his second grand prix outing with Racing Bulls.

Tsunoda explained that he was initially confused by his starting position, so he was set to line up in 15th on the left-hand side before realising he had to cross the track and line up on the right-hand side in the 14th grid slot, which caused the awkward angle of the car as he pointed towards the pitwall.

"I was a bit confused starting between 14th and 15th," Tsunoda explained. "In my view, I didn't really gain the position before the red flag. I thought I was 15th. But at least I parked behind the box, pretty far, so I don't think I gained any advantage for that."

Yuki Tsunoda, Racing Bulls

Photo by: Peter Fox / Getty Images

The stewards agreed with Racing Bulls that Tsunoda was not in a false start position and that there was no impact on other competitors. Adding an extra formation lap was a decision at the discretion of the race director, and as a technicality it was deemed not to be directly caused by Tsunoda himself because the team had not been told so.

That would have involved the driver in question to either start the race from the pitlane, or risk a stop-and-go penalty. But the stewards agreed that there was no reason for the team to instruct Tsunoda to comer into the pits, so it will not impose a penalty on the Japanese driver.

Having lost his regular seat at the end of last season, Tsunoda became Red Bull's reserve driver and returned to his former team Racing Bulls deputising for Liam Lawson, who replaced the injured Isack Hadjar at Red Bull.

The FIA verdict in full

Car 22 approached the grid initially heading for the left hand side of the grid, then realising he was headed for the wrong grid position, the driver changed direction and positioned his car in the correct grid box and in the correct position within the grid box. This was verified by the Stewards with video from multiple camera angles.

The Race Director, in evidence, stated that it was his call, based on the behaviour of the car on the approach to the grid box, to commence an extra formation lap. He stated he was not comfortable starting the race with the car in that position.

The team representative stated that:

(i) The car was not in a “false start” position – referring to Article B5.1.1c of the F1 regulations, because no contact patch of the front tyres was outside the grid box lines (front and side)
(ii) At the Drivers meeting, the Race Director advised that for the start, the track limits were the pit walls and in this case, even though the car was pointed to the right, it had at least 4 metres of space to move off from the start
(iii) No other driver was impacted by the position of Car 22
(iv) The driver of Car 22 was not the “cause” of the extra formation lap.
(v) At no time was the team advised that Race Control considered Car 22 to be the cause of the extra formation lap.

The Stewards agree with the points above and consider that the extra formation lap resulted from the Race Director’s assessment of the situation, rather than being directly caused by the driver of Car 22.

Further, Article B5.9.4 goes on to specify that if a driver who causes the extra formation lap and is then able to start the extra formation lap, he must enter the Pit Lane at the end of the lap and start from the Pit Lane. It is only then, if the driver fails to do this, that the mandatory penalty of a Stop and Go penalty is imposed.

In other words, the penalty is for failing to come into the Pit Lane and start from there. The penalty is not for causing the extra formation lap, if indeed, he caused the extra formation lap in the first place.

A critical issue emerges here, in that in order to comply with the requirement to enter and start from the Pit Lane, a driver would need to know that he was the cause of the extra formation lap. The team representative quoted situations where extra formation laps have been commenced due to extraneous circumstances such as the position of a photographer etc. In this case, no message was sent to the team or the driver, advising them that they were the cause of the extra formation lap.

The team, based on the fact that the car was positioned within its starting grid box in compliance with the regulations, had, in our determination, no reason to instruct its driver to enter and start from the Pit Lane.

Accordingly, irrespective of whether or not the driver directly caused the extra formation lap, the team and driver were unaware that they were being considered as the cause, therefore we determine that we are unable to impose a Stop and Go penalty in this case, and decide to take no further action.

We note that the Race Director acted in good faith and out of an abundance of caution in ordering an extra formation lap. We further note that the FIA might wish to consider implementing a process to advise teams and drivers if they are considered to be the cause of an extra formation lap, so that they are then able to comply with the requirements of Article B5.9.4.

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Yuki Tsunoda keeps Italian GP point after escaping sanction

The FIA verdict in full

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