Audi driver Gabriel Bortoleto was handed a post-race penalty at the 2026 Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix after stewards ruled he had overtaken a rival while a yellow flag was being displayed, a decision that cost him several places in the final classification.

The incident centred on a passing move Bortoleto made on Sergio Perez's Cadillac. The Brazilian rookie went by the American-backed team's car in the moments before the Safety Car was brought out, a sequence of events that formed the basis of his defence when he was investigated by race officials.

Stewards examined whether Bortoleto had broken the rules governing overtakes made under Safety Car conditions, but concluded that particular charge did not apply. Because the Safety Car had not yet been deployed at the moment he passed Perez, the panel determined that Bortoleto could not be considered to have overtaken a competitor under Safety Car conditions, clearing him of that specific offence.

However, the investigation did not end there. Stewards found that a yellow flag was being shown at the time of the move, and that Bortoleto had passed Perez while it was in effect — a breach of the sporting regulations regardless of the Safety Car situation. As a result, he was given a 10-second time penalty, a punishment applied after the chequered flag that dropped him to 15th place, leaving him as the last of the classified finishers.

In their written explanation, the stewards emphasised that a waved yellow flag carries its own binding instruction to drivers, separate from any other signal or circumstance that might be occurring on track at the same time. They stated that such a flag must be obeyed on its own terms, regardless of what else is happening around it.

The panel also made clear that drivers are not permitted to use their own judgement to decide whether a yellow flag warning is justified or should have been shown in the first place. According to the stewards, a competitor cannot disregard the flag based on personal assumptions about the reason behind it.

The ruling underlines how strictly yellow flag protocols continue to be enforced in Formula 1, even in cases where a driver may not have fully anticipated the wider situation developing on track, such as the imminent arrival of the Safety Car. For Bortoleto and Audi, the penalty turned what had been a solid overtaking move into a costly blow to his final result at the Baku street circuit.

Source: Formula 1

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