Bird handed grip penalty

Sam Bird has been handed a 5 place grid penalty for tomorrow’s sprint race in Monaco by the race stewards, who judged the Englishman to have caused a collision during this afternoon’s feature race in the principality.

Bird, who started from pole but bogged down off the line to be the last driver through Ste Devote, fought back to 11th on the road to put himself behind teammate Marcus Ericsson: the Briton drove inside the Swede at the final turn and the pair touched, with Ericsson hitting the wall on the outside of the turn.

The pair came together again a lap later on the run down to Mirabeau: Ericsson’s rear wing detached on the exit from the tunnel, while a puncture for Bird meant he had to take to the escape road at the chicane, causing both men to stop on lap 31 and a safety car period to remove the debris