Franco Colapinto has Azerbaijan GP penalty changed after controversial crash
Franco Colapinto has received his punishment for causing a multi-car collision at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Franco Colapinto has been hit with a five-place grid penalty for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia for wiping out two drivers in multi-car collision at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The Alpine driver locked up his brakes and careered into team-mate Pierre Gasly, who then hit McLaren's Lando Norris at a restart during Saturday's eventful race in Baku. All three cars retired as a result of the incident.
Colapinto was initially handed a 10-second time penalty but this has been converted into a five-place grid penalty for the next race as the Argentine was not able to serve his original punishment in Azerbaijan due to retiring.
It means Colapinto will drop five positions from wherever he qualifies at next weekend's race in Malaysia.
"Following the restart, COL approached GAS from behind into Turn 1. COL braked too late and entered the corner on the inside at a speed which did not allow him to make the corner in a controlled manner. He overshot the corner and made contact with the left-hand side of GAS, who then hit NOR and both cars retired," the stewards explained.
"The Stewards considered that COL was wholly or predominantly to blame for the collision. Although the incident occurred at the first corner following the restart, there was no contribution from another driver which would justify applying the first-lap / first- corner more linient approach.
"The standard penalty for causing a collision is a 10-second time penalty. As COL had retired from the Race and was therefore unable to serve the time penalty, the Stewards converted the penalty to a drop of 5 grid positions at the next Race in which the driver participates in accordance which Article B1.9.6.(e) of the FIA FIA 2026 F1 Regulations."
The incident led reigning world champion Norris to call for Colapinto to be banned from F1.
“I think the FIA should be more strict and start handing out bans for this kind of stuff,” Norris fumed.
“It’s just careless from people. Costs a lot of money.
“All my parts are in the bin now, so yeah, people should just get banned because that’s not driving that deserves to be in Formula 1.
“I’ve not seen it, but I mean if you cause a crash on a restart like this, you should have at least a one-race ban.”
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