Antonio Fuoco has lost his front row start after being one of five drivers handed a grid penalty by the race stewards following this evening’s qualifying session in Bahrain: joining the Italian on the reprimand list is Gustav Malja, Stefano Coletti, Sergio Canamasas and Sean Gelael.
Fuoco was handed a 3 place grid penalty for impeding Artem Markelov during the session, dropping him to P5 and promoting Nyck De Vries to the front row alongside poleman Charles Leclerc. Malja drops 5 places from P15 after being judged to have driven in a potentially dangerous manner and causing a collision with Nabil Jeffri late in the session, prompting a VSC period until the chequered flag: he will start in P17.
Finally Gelael, Canamasas and Coletti will all receive 5 place grid penalties for failing to slow sufficiently for the VSC period. The 3 drivers provisionally qualified in 17th, 18th and 19th respectively, and as such cannot drop the full 5 places: as such they will start tomorrow’s feature race from the pitlane.
FIA F2 Press Release