Audi said it intends to appeal the F1 stewards’ decision to not hand Yuki Tsunoda a penalty following his start procedure infringement at the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Tsunoda parked his car at the wrong grid spot during the restart following Charles Leclerc’s crash and forced the stewards to trigger an extra formation lap.

The Japanese driver, standing in for the injured Isack Hadjar at Racing Bulls, with Liam Lawson gaining temporary promotion to Red Bull, finished tenth in the final classification. Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto finished the race in 11th place with teammate Nico Hulkenberg 12th.

Stewards confirmed after the race that the extra formation lap was triggered ‌by the positioning of Tsunoda’s car.

“Car 22 approached ​the grid initially heading for the left hand side of the grid, then realising ⁠he was headed for the wrong grid position, the driver changed direction and positioned his car in the correct ‌grid box and in the correct position within the grid box,” they said.

Race director Rui Marques said he made the call to abort the start, based on the behaviour of the car on the approach to the grid box.

Racing Bulls pointed out, however, that ‌the team and Tsunoda was not told they were the cause of ​the decision.

“The team representative quoted situations where extra formation laps have been commenced due to ⁠extraneous circumstances such as the position of a photographer etc,” ⁠stewards said.

“In this case, no message was sent to the team or the driver, advising them ‌that they were the cause of the extra formation lap.”

They noted that Marques had “acted in good faith ​and out of an abundance of caution”.

– Inputs from Reuters

Published on Sep 07, 2026