Oliver Bearman handed huge 10-place Monaco GP grid penalty for dangerous act

British racer has been slapped with a huge penalty for the . He faces a 10-place grid drop for Sunday's race after being found guilty of overtaking another car during red flag conditions.

And, as expected, the stewards took a dim view of that. And Bearman faces a massive grid drop for Sunday's race as a result, meaning he is now likely to start near the back of the grid regardless of where the driver qualifies on Saturday.

Explaining their decision, the stewards said: "Well prior to the overtake, the session had been red flagged. The team informed the driver rather late, just before the overtake happened.

"However, it is clear from the video footage that there was a light panel directly in front of the driver which showed the red flag; and the dashboard also indicated the red flag well before the overtake took place.

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"The regulations require the drivers to 'immediately' reduce speed and proceed slowly back to their respective pits (Article 2.5.4.1 b)). The same regulations caution drivers of the fact that in a red flag situation, 'overtaking is forbidden' and that drivers should 'remember that race and service vehicles may be on the track'.

"The driver claimed that he saw the red flags but decided not to slow down abruptly because he felt that slowing down abruptly would have been more dangerous and that what he did was a safer way of handling the situation.

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"We disagreed with his decision to not take steps to slow down sufficiently to avoid overtaking another car and instead proceeding slowly back to the pits, as required. The whole purpose of requiring drivers to slow down immediately is for safety – they will not know what is in front of them or the reason for the red flag being shown.

"This is particularly so in a track like Monaco. In the circumstances, there is no mitigating factor for the fact that he overtook a car under red flag and we therefore imposed a penalty of a 10 grid place drop for the race and two penalty points."

Bearman is not the only one heading into qualifying with a grid penalty already overshadowing them. after he caused a collision with during first practice on Friday

The Canadian was found to be "wholly at fault" for the collision, despite the car coming off worse in terms of damage sustained. The front wing of the was broken but that was swiftly replaced and Monegasque home hero Leclerc went on to set the fastest time of both sessions held on Friday.