Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton have both avoided grid drops for Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix following post-qualifying investigations.
Sainz was summoned to the stewards for alleged erratic driving during Q2.
The Spaniard was involved in an incident on a cool-down lap when he was caught by Max Verstappen, who was on an out-lap, before defending track position from the reigning champion.
“What is he doing, man? He’s defending!” Verstappen was heard complaining to his engineers over the team radio. “Did you see that? I almost crashed into him,” he chimed as the former Toro Rosso team-mates came close to making contact.
Sainz pleaded to the Stewards that he “could not afford” to be passed by another car in order to stay above the maximum lap time enforced during the qualifying session.
After a review of video, timing data and team radio , the Stewards found the Ferrari driver’s defence to be “unnecessary given the fact that the incident happened in qualifying and cars are not supposed to directly race each other while preparing for flying laps.”
Sainz escaped with just a warning, thus retaining his P12 qualifying position, his lowest qualifying result of the season.
Hamilton also escaped a grid drop after he was found to have exceeded the 1:46.000 maximum lap time on in-laps imposed by Race Director Niels Wittich.
The Stewards were satisfied that Hamilton – and also Oscar Piastri, Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda – had all taken the “appropriate action” to avoid other cars and resultantly exceeded the maximum lap time.
The Briton therefore keeps his third-place starting position for the Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday, behind team-mate George Russell and polesitter Verstappen.
