McLaren fined €10,000 for unsafe release in qualifying, Perez and Stroll cleared

The Italian Grand Prix stewards have handed McLaren an increased fine after the team released Oscar Piastri from the garage in front of Max Verstappen in qualifying.

As the Red Bull driver made his way down the pit lane, McLaren released Piastri from his garage. Verstappen was forced to slam on the brakes and swerve towards the pit wall in avoidance.

“Fucking hell! We almost crashed!,” Verstappen exclaimed over the radio to race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase. “I saw that, Max,” Lambiase replied.

Race control announced soon after that the incident would be investigated after qualifying. In a hearing with the stewards after qualifying, McLaren accepted responsibility for the near-miss. CCTV footage of the incident appeared to show that the McLaren mechanic responsible for signalling Piastri to leave the garage was more focused on Piastri than on if any cars were approaching in the fast lane.

The stewards believed that McLaren’s infraction deserve a “more severe penalty” than others issued for similar offences during the season and therefore handed the team a fine of €10,000 (£8,420) as a result. Piastri’s second place grid position for Sunday’s grand prix remains unaffected.

Williams rookie Franco Colapinto also received a formal warning by the stewards ahead of his grand prix debut after he was deemed to have carried out a practice start outside of the permitted area in final practice.

Colapinto admitted that he was preoccupied with trying to get into the right settings for the launch on his steering wheel and started five metres beyond the permitted zone. The stewards took this and the fact it was his first grand prix weekend into account and imposed only a warning rather than a penalty.

In a further incident from practice Sergio Perez had no further action taken against him for failing to follow race director Niels Wittich’s instructions after he did not pass to the right of the green bollard at the end of the escape road at the Roggia chicane after running off track.

The stewards determined that Perez had rejoined the track safely even despite staying left of the bollard and took no further action. After Perez and Red Bull expressed their belief that the bollard was unnecessary, Wittich has now removed the bollard at the end of the escape road for the remainder of the weekend. Lance Stroll was also cleared over a similar incident.

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