Five drivers disqualified from Formula 3 Monza qualifying after parc ferme breaches
Five drivers have been disqualified from the FIA Formula 3 qualifying results in Monza after teams changed tyres while the cars were under parc ferme regulations.
Hitech Pulse-Eight drivers Sebastián Montoya, Gabriele Minì, and Luke Browning during FIA Formula 3 practice at the Italian Grand Prix. (Joe Portlock / Formula Motorsport Limited)
All three Hitech Pulse-Eight drivers Gabriele Minì, Luke Browning, and Sebastián Montoya, as well as Rodin Carlin drivers Francesco Simonazzi and Ido Cohen, were disqualified.
Minì was originally sixth, Browning ninth, and Montoya 13th in the provisional classification, with Simonazzi 21st while Ido Cohen had failed to set a lap time.
With the session ending under a red flag after Oliver Goethe collided with the barriers, the race director announced that the session would not resume.
The FIA stewards found that the two teams had mistakenly changed the tyres of the offending cars after the session had ended and the field was under parc ferme regulations, when cars could not be attended to by mechanics.
‘The circumstances of the ending of this session were unusual and the stewards accept that it might not have been immediately apparent to all teams that the Race Director’s announcement that the session would not resume meant that parc ferme regulations immediately applied to all the cars in the pit lane under red flag when ordinarily the session would end with cars crossing the Control Line on the track,” read the stewards report regarding the Hitech drivers.
“In this case the breach was a consequence of a mistake by the team which gave no sporting advantage. However, the absence of a sporting advantage from a parc ferme or technical infringement does not render a competitor immune from the accepted penalty of disqualification.”
The penalties move up a number of drivers in the starting order, but do not impact Goethe’s pole position or Gabriel Bortoleto’s championship victory, decided when rivals Paul Aron and Pepe Martí were denied the two points available for pole.
Franco Colapinto moves up to twelfth, on pole for the reverse-grid sprint race on Saturday.
Meanwhile Oliver Gray, who did not set a lap after colliding with the rear of teammate Ido Cohen, was slapped with a three-place penalty for the collision.
Gray also has a five-place penalty from the Spa-Francorchamps feature race, and will start 25th with his penalties applied prior to the disqualifications.
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2023 FIA Formula 3 Championship - Round 10 Monza Qualifying (after penalties)
- Oliver Goethe
- Caio Collet
- Paul Aron
- Jonny Edgar
- Gabriel Bortoleto
- Zak O’Sullivan
- Leonardo Fornaroli
- Taylor Barnard
- Nikola Tsolov
- Gregoire Saucy
- Mari Boya
- Franco Colapinto
- Pepe Marti
- Christian Mansell (AUS)
- Tommy Smith (AUS)
- Kaylen Frederick
- Rafael Villagomez
- Sophia Floersch
- Woohyun Shin
- Joshua Dufek
- Alejandro Garcia
- Roberto Faria
- Dino Beganovic - DNF
- Oliver Gray - DNF
- Nikita Bedrin - DNF
- Gabriele Mini - DSQ
- Luke Browning - DSQ
- Sebastian Montoya - DSQ
- Ido Cohen - DSQ
- Francesco Simonazzi - DSQ
