Daly blamed for Monaco accident

GP3 frontrunner Conor Daly has been hit by a controversial 10-place grid penalty for Saturday's opening Valencia round by race stewards after they decided his actions were responsible for the accident that led to him flying into the catch-fencing in Monaco last month.

Lotus GP driver Daly, who was second fastest in practice in Valencia this morning, was judged to be at fault. He had stormed from 12th place from 23rd on the race two grid on the opening lap in Monaco, but then got stuck behind Dmitry Suranovich.

Daly hit the Manor car during their battle, removing Suranovich's rear wing, but the Russian continued in front of him.

On lap 11, Daly was launched into the air over the back of Suranovich's car shortly after they had exited the tunnel, making contact with the top of the debris fence on the harbor side before crashing back down onto the track.

Daly was unhurt, but the race had to stopped due to barrier damage.

Many observers felt that Suranovich was to blame for this second collision, as he was defending aggressively despite driving a severely-damaged car.

Suranovich was excluded from the results following the accident.

But stewards instead penalized the American as they ruled he had "collided with the rear of another competitor and removed the rear wing. After colliding again with the rear of the same competitor, the race was red flagged."

Daly will drop 10 places from his qualifying position for race one in Valencia. Autosport