Formula 1 championship leader Oscar Piastri has avoided a potentially pivotal grid penalty for the 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, escaping with a reprimand following an investigation into what was deemed a yellow flag breach.
Piastri and his McLaren F1 team had to see the stewards 40 minutes after the conclusion of second practice in Baku, after a potential infringement was picked up in the 34th minute of the session.
The subject of the investigation was whether Piastri had ignored yellow flags brought out by the Alpine of Pierre Gasly going into the run-off at Turn 1 right ahead of him.
And the stewards indeed found that Piastri committed what was "technically a breach of the regulations" but issued a reduced penalty due to "mitigating circumstances".
"A yellow flag was displayed at Marshal Post 1.2 and green light was shown at light panel 3," the stewards wrote.
The marshal post in question is located at Turn 1, while the light panel is located just past halfway down the straight coming out of the corner.
"Drivers had been instructed that, if they see a green light, they must take the action required under a yellow flag condition even if they had not been shown the yellow flag.
"In this case, the driver had [already] passed Marshal Post 1.2 when the yellow flag was shown for the first time, but was able to see the green light at light panel 3.
"The yellow flag was withdrawn less than one second after the green light became visible to the driver".
In other words, Piastri was to have - as per instruction - ascertained the existence of a yellow flag situation by virtue of the green light panel (signalling the end of the yellow flag zone), and the stewards indicated that in this light he did fail to sufficiently slow for a yellow flag condition.
However, as mentioned above, this was only described as "technically" a breach. The stewards said the reduced penalty due to mitigating circumstances was "consistent with previous similar incidents".
Piastri's reprimand is his first of the season. He would have to accrue four more to receive a 10-place grid penalty.
The outcome will come as relief to McLaren on a day where both of its drivers clipped the wall - Lando Norris breaking the suspension as a result - and the MCL39 appeared a handful to extract performance from.
"A scrappy session, I guess, from my side and I think from Oscar's side, he seemed to be struggling a little bit with the car as well," said Norris.
"A bit tricky, yeah, just a bit up and down," Piastri concurred.
