Championship leader Kimi Antonelli has been given a three-place grid penalty at the Hungarian Grand Prix for failing to slow sufficiently for yellow flags in qualifying.
The Mercedes driver qualified fourth at the Hungaroring on Saturday and will now line up seventh on the grid as a result of the penalty.
Antonelli was on his final and fastest lap in qualifying when Max Verstappen spun off the road ahead of him, resulting in yellow flags being displayed by trackside marshals at the last corner.
F1's sporting regulations require that "any driver passing through a waved yellow flag marshalling sector must reduce their speed and be prepared to change direction."
While the stewards recognized that Antonelli had lifted off the throttle compared to his previous lap, the data showed that he was still faster through the corner despite the yellow flags showing.
"The driver of Car 12 stated that on seeing the yellow flag and light panel, he lifted off the throttle earlier than his previous push lap," a statement said. "This was verified by the telemetry.
"However the reduction in speed occurred for a very short period, and in fact the car's speed when passing the scene of the incident involving Car 3, was slightly higher than that on the previous push lap.
"The mini sector time was only 0.03 second slower than his best time for that mini sector, and whilst, because he had lifted 16 metres earlier, he was 14 km/h slower entering the yellow flag sector, but was 3 km/h faster when passing the incident site due to less application of the brakes entering the corner.
"The FIA representatives noted that the speed reduction in the mini sector was less than 1%."
The stewards opted for a more lenient three-place grid penalty, rather than the standard five-place grid penalty, because Antonelli attempted to reduce his speed and had limited time to react.
"The recommended penalty according to the penalty guidelines, for this offence, is a drop of five grid positions, however in mitigation of penalty, we considered that the driver did make a reduction in speed, albeit, in our determination, an insufficient and unsustained one," the statement continued.
"Further, the driver had limited time and distance to react. Hence a lower penalty is applied."
Antonelli was also summoned to the stewards for a separate incident in which he was alleged to have driven unnecessarily slowly during his in-lap at the end of Q3.
The race directors' notes for the Hungarian Grand Prix state that "in order to ensure that cars are not driven unnecessarily slowly on any laps during and after the end of qualifying or during reconnaissance lap(s) when the pit exit is opened for the race, drivers must stay below 1:32.0 between the Safety Car lines shown on the pit lane drawing."
While Antonelli exceeded the maximum time permitted on his way back to the pits, he escaped with only a warning from the stewards -- partly because Mercedes' engineers were preoccupied with an issue on teammate George Russell's car.
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"The driver was on an in-lap and his time between SC2 and SC1 exceeded the prescribed maximum for this event," the stewards' statement said. "Car 12 was not overtaken by any other car.
"The driver acknowledged that he had exceeded the delta. He said he was preoccupied by his push lap having being affected by a yellow flag and wasn't focusing sufficiently on adhering to the delta.
"The team explained that they were dealing with an issue with Car 63 and ought to have reminded the driver to speed up. The Stewards determined that the driver drove unnecessarily slowly by not adhering to the delta but noted that no other car was affected.
"Consistent with previous infringements of this type where no other car is affected, the Stewards imposed a warning."
Antonelli went into this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix with a 45-point lead over Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton in the drivers' championship.
Hamilton set the second fastest time in qualifying, but was also given a three-place grid penalty for impeding Oscar Piastri's McLaren in Q3 and will now start from fifth.
