Silverstone, Northamptonshire - American Formula Two driver Santino Ferrucci has fined and banned for four races for crashing into his Indian team-mate, driving the car with a cellphone in his hand and refusing to attend stewards' hearings.
Stewards fined the 20-year-old, who is a development driver for the US-owned Haas Formula One team, €66 000 (R1.045 million) and disqualified him from Sunday's race at Silverstone. He was banned from the next two rounds in Hungary and Belgium, four races in all.
Formula Two is an official feeder series for Formula One, with races run after Saturday qualifying and before Sunday's Grand Prix. Race organisers said Ferrucci had deliberately driven into the rear of Trident team-mate Arjun Maini's car on the cooldown lap. He also forced Maini off the track during the race.
The
said the American had also been seen in the car, while it was going from the support paddock to pitlane, "wearing just one glove and holding a phone in his hand". It said that "violated both the technical and sporting regulations for incorrect driver safety equipment and the prohibition of wireless transmission devices within the car."
Trident apologised for its driver's "unsportsmanlike and above all uncivilised behaviour", adding: "The contractual implications of what has happened will be dealt with by our lawyers. Never in these 12 years of sporting activity has anything even close to this ever occurred."