Formula 2 driver Santino Ferrucci isn’t having a good week…or month…or, far as we can tell, year. The results of this weekend’s activities certainly aren’t helping matters, but let’s look at what happened to understand why he just got slapped with a four-race ban and a total of €66,000 in fines. The main problem that earned him the ban started at the Sprint Race at Silverstone in the U.K., where he forced Trident teammate Arjun Maini off track, then on the cool-down lap hit his car again. Adding insult to injury, he was then spotted driving the race car in the pits with a glove off (against the rules), holding a phone in hand (against common sense…and the rules.) And the final nail in the coffin came when Ferrucci did not appear at an FIA Stewards hearing afterwards.

Via Twitter, Ferrucci had this to say:

“I want to send my sincerest apologies for my actions on Sunday at the FIA F2 race at Silverstone Circuit. I used extremely poor judgement at the conclusion of the race getting far too close to my team mate Arjun and swerved away to graze his tire, very fortunately causing no damage or issue to his car. There was no intent, premeditation, or any type of retaliation by my actions, only anger and frustration as this has been a horrific year. I have no excuse other than the fact that I am a twenty year old Italian American with a deep passion for motorsport, which is a very emotional sport. While there has been much provocation leading to my mental lapse, it is still not an excuse and I will make sure that this does not happen again.

I realize I have embarrassed many people and I apologize to my Sponsors, Trident, my fellow drivers, Haas F1, FIA, FIA F2, my fans, friends and family.

I also want to apologize to the FIA Stewards for not being able to attend the hearing. I was randomly selected for a drug test, as were others, and this delayed my return to the paddock by over an hour. At that point I very quickly packed and had to leave for the airport to catch an early flight back to the US to attend an extremely urgent time sensitive family medical issue. I was notified of the Stewards meeting as I was leaving and did send an email to my team manager to forward to the Stewards explaining that I had no option but to leave.”

Not many are taking the apology seriously, because it appears that there might have been more going on behind the scenes. On the Trident Team twitter account, a post about showing “solidarity and support” to Maini and family over the “unsportsmanlike and above all uncivilized behavior” they endured at the hands of Ferrucci and his father, has fans and observers wondering if Ferrucci’s vacation is going to be a bit longer than two weekends’ worth of racing.