Charles Leclerc has been handed a 3-place grid penalty for impeding Oscar Piastri during today's Shootout.

The stewards heard from both drivers and their team representatives, as well as reviewing positioning/marshalling system data, video, timing, telemetry, team radio and in-car video evidence.

Piastri said that as he approached Turn 9 he saw that Leclerc was travelling slowly and had to brake, reducing his speed by approximately 45 km/h over the previous push lap. This was verified by the stewards referencing the telemetry of the McLaren.

It was confirmed that Piastri lost approximately 0.5 of a second in that mini-sector (5.3s v 4.8s).

Leclerc stated that the last call he had from his team was when he was approaching Turn 4 ("Piastri 6 seconds") and that he saw the McLaren in his mirrors as he was in Turn 8 and the Australian was in Turn 7.

The Ferrari team representative admitted that the team "could have done better" in communicating the rapid approach of Piastri, while Leclerc added that: "If I had been warned I could have done something earlier".

Accordingly the stewards determined that although this was not entirely the fault of the driver, and that the team's lack of communication was the major contributing factor, a grid position penalty had to be imposed as Piastri was "unnecessarily impeded", because there is no doubt that the situation could have been avoided.

Check out our Saturday gallery from the Red Bull Ring here.