Bearman handed 10-place Monaco GP grid penalty after red flag violation in practice

Haas rookie Ollie Bearman has been hit with a 10-place grid penalty for the Monaco Grand Prix after the stewards found him guilty of a red flag breach during practice.

Television replays showed Bearman appearing to overtake Carlos Sainz under the red flags triggered by Oscar Piastri’s crash in Friday’s second session, with the stewards subsequently noting the incident.

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After Bearman and a Haas team representative visited the stewards, and various footage and data was analysed, the panel came to the conclusion that Bearman should be hit with the sizeable grid drop.

It means at least two drivers will begin Saturday’s all-important Qualifying session with penalties to their name, given Lance Stroll’s earlier sanction for an FP1 clash involving Charles Leclerc.

“Well prior to the overtake, the session had been red flagged,” read the stewards’ decision document. “The team informed the driver rather late, just before the overtake happened. However, it is clear from the video footage that there was a light panel directly in front of the driver which showed the red flag; and the dashboard also indicated the red flag well before the overtake took place.

“The regulations require the drivers to ‘immediately’ reduce speed and proceed slowly back to their respective pits (Article 2.5.4.1 b)). The same regulations caution drivers of the fact that in a red flag situation, ‘overtaking is forbidden’ and that drivers should ‘remember that race and service vehicles may be on the track…’.

AS IT HAPPENED: Follow all the action from second practice for the Monaco Grand Prix

“The driver claimed that he saw the red flags but decided not to slow down abruptly because he felt that slowing down abruptly would have been more dangerous and that what he did was a safer way of handling the situation.

“We disagreed with his decision to not take steps to slow down sufficiently to avoid overtaking another car and instead proceeding slowly back to the pits, as required.

“The whole purpose of requiring drivers to slow down immediately is for safety – they will not know what is in front of them or the reason for the red flag being shown. This is particularly so in a track like Monaco.

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“In the circumstances, there is no mitigating factor for the fact that he overtook a car under red flag and we therefore imposed a penalty of a 10-grid place drop for the race and two penalty points.”