The penalties received by Franco Colapinto at the 2026 Dutch GP, held on Sunday (23), provoked a strong reaction from the driver’s main sponsor. Sean Summers, marketing director of Mercado Libre, accused the FIA (International Automobile Federation) stewards of “killing the integrity” of Formula 1 after the Argentine received two penalties in Zandvoort.
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Colapinto was penalized with a drive-through for overtaking Yuki Tsunoda under yellow flags, triggered after Max Verstappen’s heavy crash still on the first lap. The Argentine finished the race in 14th and considered the decision excessively harsh. According to Colapinto, the yellow flag appeared when his overtaking was already practically completed, on a wet, sloped, and low-grip track:
“It was the drive-through that compromised our entire race. I had a very good start and was there in the points zone. Yeah, complicated, I think,” he explained. “I saw a very, very late yellow flag when I was already finishing the overtaking, and clearly it was much more dangerous to brake hard and accelerate in the middle of the straight, on the sloped part and in the wet, when everyone was spinning. So it is a very complicated situation.”
Colapinto advocated for greater flexibility in rule enforcement: “I feel that, even if the rules are written, they should be much more flexible and they should have criteria to also understand what is safer or a little less safe. If someone is going 30 km/h slower in the same part of the track, you are overtaking and a yellow flag appears, there is not much to do. It is very difficult to react to that.”
The driver also received a 10-second penalty for another yellow flag infraction and three points on his license, raising his total in the last 12 months to four.
The decision sparked a statement from Sean Summers on social media: “The FIA stewards are killing the integrity of F1. This season they have been showing themselves to be horrible and impacting race results. Incompetence? Dishonesty? Both? Something is seriously broken in the culture of this organization.”
Alpine, however, stated confidence in the FIA and the stewards, although it acknowledged that the penalties were harsh to the portal Crash.net: “As a team, we work closely with the sport’s regulatory body regarding on-track combat rules to ensure fair and exciting racing and, most importantly, safety,” said an Alpine spokesperson. “We fully trust the FIA and the stewards regarding the enforcement of these rules and the application of sporting penalties during a live race scenario.
“We believe that the penalties applied for yellow flag infractions during the early laps of the Dutch Grand Prix were indeed harsh, but we recognize that they fall within the punishment based on the letter of the law and were applied consistently to all competitors, and it is something we can review and learn from as a team.”
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