F1 star hit with United States Grand Prix grid penalty as sprint race chaos punished

Lance Stroll has been hit with a five-place grid penalty for the United States Grand Prix, as well as two penalty points on his FIA Super License. The Aston Martin racer collected Haas' Esteban Ocon during a late-race battle in Saturday's sprint following an audacious lunge at Turn One.

Stroll and Ocon were scrapping well outside of the points-paying positions during the closing stages of the sprint race when the Canadian star attempted a poorly-calculated move at Turn One. Realising his mistake, he attempted to back out but locked up and collided hard with the Haas machine. Both drivers were unable to continue, bringing out a safety car that stayed out until the chequered flag.

The stewards took a dim view of the incident. "Car 18 [Stroll] attempted an inside overtake on Car 31 [Ocon] into Turn 1 but misjudged the braking point and collided with Car 31," their post-race report explained.

"The Stewards determine that the driver of Car 18 is wholly at fault and apply a penalty accordingly. As the driver to be penalized did not finish the race a grid penalty equalling a 10 seconds time penalty is imposed."

Stroll's clumsy crash capped off a miserable sprint race for the Aston Martin team, who lost significant ground to Constructors' Championship rivals Williams, with Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon both finishing inside the top eight.

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Fernando Alonso's race ended on the opening lap after he was caught up in a Turn One tangle with Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri and Nico Hulkenberg. The two-time world champion was left cursing poor fortune after climbing out of his AMR25 machine.

Addressing his race, Alonso said: "It felt good. At one point in the apex [at Turn One on lap one], I thought that I was in the right place on the inside of the corner.

"But some cars, they came very fast from the outside, switching back and then I was there in the middle. Unfortunately, it happened today, as usual to us this year, when we are in the points all these things happen [but] when we're P14, P15, there is the most boring race ever."