The Azerbaijan Grand Prix stewards penalised Franco Colapinto for the Safety Car restart crash which eliminated three drivers.
Colapinto crashed into his team mate Pierre Gasly, who in turn hit McLaren’s Lando Norris, at turn one.The stewards issued a 10-second time penalty to Colapinto. As he did not finish the race, the stewards chose to convert this into a five-place grid drop for the next round.
The FIA’s 2026 penalty guidelines state a 10-second penalty is the baseline sanction for causing a collision. They may issue a drive-through penalty or 10 second stop-and-go penalty. A five-second time penalty is permitted if mitigating circumstances apply.
Colapinto said he was “very sad for the team” and offered his apologies. “A big sorry to all of them, to the factory to Pierre, of course, I took him out. So I’m really disappointed.
“We were both in a position to score points. So it was a big day for the theme and I did a big mistake.”
He admitted he lost control of his car before the crash. “I’m just really sorry, it shouldn’t happen. I was locking up and completely out of control. So not a lot I could do.”
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The stewards held Colapinto responsible for the crash and said there was no reason to apply a less severe penalty despite the incident happening immediately after a restart.
“Following the restart, [Colapinto] approached [Gasly] from behind into turn one,” they noted. “Colapinto 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 Gasly, who then hit [Norris] and both cars retired.
“The stewards considered that Colapinto 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 lenient approach.”
Alpine executive consultant Flavio Briatore said he was unimpressed with Colapinto’s driving.
“Obviously I’m extremely disappointed with the outcome of today’s race, knowing we lost valuable points in the championship fight,” he said in a statement issued by Alpine. “These sort of incidents shouldn’t happen, particularly when we were running well with both cars in point-scoring positions.
“I feel very sorry for the team and for Pierre who did a great job all weekend and my apologies also go to Lando and McLaren for ruining their race.
“I know that Franco has taken full responsibility for it, as he should; in fact he braked far too late considering the context of the race and the safety car restart. It was a very poor move for a driver of his experience. I want to take time to reflect on it and consider what course of action should be taken, so we can learn from it and avoid such a situation in future.”
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