Prema Racing’s Pierre Gasly has been excluded from the GP2 feature race at the Hockenheimring, losing his third place.
The French driver recovered from a poor start to beat Raffaele Marciello to the final podium spot by just 0.030 seconds, after a sprint to the finish line.
During the early stages of the race smoke appeared from the cockpit of Gasly’s GP2 car, with a later inspection finding it came from the fire extinguisher.
The extinguisher was empty at the chequered flag, with stewards deeming it did not comply with the safety equipment regulations.
He was excluded from the final feature race results, losing third place and dropping to the back of the grid for Sunday’s sprint event.
The decision from the stewards means Gasly's lead in the GP2 championship over ART Grand Prix's Sergey Sirotkin drops from 21 to six points.
Daniel de Jong and Artem Markelov were also handed post-race penalties, after incidents during the feature race.
Gasly’s team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi will start the race from reverse grid pole position, ahead of Alex Lynn and Gustav Malja.
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