Dobson handed penalties for all three Austin races

Ava Dobson has been handed grid penalties for all three F1 ACADEMY races in Austin after the American Express driver was found to have failed to slow for a single yellow flag at Sector 19 during the Practice session earlier on today.

Dobson arrived at Turn 19, where the yellow flags were active for a car that had spun off at the corner exit, but had already committed to the corner. She said she tried to lift the throttle in response.

After hearing from Dobson and her Hitech team and reviewing the data available, the Stewards did not find any noticeable reduction in speed approaching or through the sector. A brief reduction in midcorner throttle application was observed, but not enough to reduce the speed of the car.

As a result, they determined that Dobson did not satisfy the requirements to respect the yellow flags and so have imposed the standard penalty of a three-place grid drop for all three races. This means the 18-year-old will now line up in P17 for the Opening Race, P18 for the Reverse Grid Race and P18 for the Feature Race.