The Audi Formula 1 team has notified the FIA of its intention to appeal against Yuki Tsunoda’s non-penalty in the Italian Grand Prix.
Amid confusion over where he was supposed to line up on a lap 6 restart, Tsunoda parked in his correct 14th grid slot, but at an angle towards the inside wall. Race director Rui Marques was “not comfortable” with Tsunoda’s position, so imposed an extra formation lap.
According to Article B5.9.4 of the F1 2026 sporting regulations, “any driver who caused an extra formation lap, and is then able to start the, or any subsequent, extra formation lap must enter the Pit Lane at the end of the lap and must start … from the end of the Pit Lane.”
But according to the FIA race stewards, Tsunoda didn’t technically cause the extra formation lap because the race director acted out of an abundance of caution, Tsunoda wasn’t out of his grid slot and didn’t impact other competitors. The crux of the issue is that race control hadn’t informed Racing Bulls that its driver had caused the extra formation lap either, so therefore the team had no reason to tell Tsunoda to start from the pitlane.
Tsunoda escaped a stop-and-go penalty and went on to score the final point in 10th. The decision not to punish the Japanese driver impacted Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto, who crossed the line in 11th.
As a result, Audi has notified the FIA of its intention to appeal against the non-penalty for Tsunoda.
“Following the Italian Grand Prix, we raised a concern regarding the application of Article B5.9.4, which requires a driver who causes an extra formation lap to enter the pit lane and resume the race from there,” Audi said in a statement. “The Stewards issued a decision of No Further Action, and we have notified our intention to appeal. As the matter is now subject to the FIA appeal process, we will not comment further at this stage.”
Gabriel Bortoleto would have gained a point in Monza if Yuki Tsunoda had been handed a penalty.
Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images
Per article 15.4 of the FIA’s International Sporting Code, competitors have one hour after the stewards’ decision to notify their intention to appeal. That does not mean Audi is actually appealing against the verdict just yet. But it gives the team an additional 96-hour time window to further study the case to see if there is an element to appeal against before following through on it.
In their verdict, the stewards wrote: “The extra formation lap resulted from the Race Director’s assessment of the situation, rather than being directly caused by the driver of Car 22.
“Further, Article B5.9.4 goes on to specify that if a driver who causes the extra formation lap and is then able to start the extra formation lap, he must enter the Pit Lane at the end of the lap and start from the Pit Lane. It is only then, if the driver fails to do this, that the mandatory penalty of a Stop and Go penalty is imposed.
“In other words, the penalty is for failing to come into the Pit Lane and start from there. The penalty is not for causing the extra formation lap, if indeed, he caused the extra formation lap in the first place.
“A critical issue emerges here, in that in order to comply with the requirement to enter and start from the Pit Lane, a driver would need to know that he was the cause of the extra formation lap.”
The stewards added: “The team, based on the fact that the car was positioned within its starting grid box in compliance with the regulations, had, in our determination, no reason to instruct its driver to enter and start from the Pit Lane.
“Accordingly, irrespective of whether or not the driver directly caused the extra formation lap, the team and driver were unaware that they were being considered as the cause, therefore we determine that we are unable to impose a Stop and Go penalty in this case, and decide to take no further action.”
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– The Autosport.com Team
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