Carlos Sainz has been handed a 3-place grid penalty for impeding Pierre Gasly during today's qualifying session.

The Spaniard had previously been investigated for impeding Alex Albon (twice) in FP2, but the stewards opted to take no further action, accepting the Ferrari driver's claim that he had needed to back off because Max Verstappen was just ahead.

The weather conditions resulted in significant visibility problems for drivers especially on the straight between Turns 12 and 13 and Ferrari had previously been warned by race control about a similar incident on the prior lap at the same location, noting that communications between the team and the Spaniard were "satisfactory".

The wording of Article 35.7 includes the words "unnecessarily impedes another driver", and in the Albon case both parties and the stewards believed that this was not a case of unnecessarily impeding and that Sainz acted in the manner he did in order to, in his view, avoid the car in front and the approaching car from behind.

Albon and Sainz raised with the stewards the issue of cars backing up at Turn 13, strongly suggesting that it would be better, in the wet, for any backing up to occur at Turn 10 where they believed there was better visibility.

In terms of the incident involving Gasly, Sainz said that he was surprised that Yuki Tsunoda overtook him into Turn 13 and as a result he accelerated late to start his fast lap.

Gasly stated that Sainz could have and should have "gone earlier", telemetry showing a significant speed differential between the two cars.

Although the overtaking move by Tsunoda took Sainz by surprise, it was the stewards feeling that the Spaniard was predominantly to blame and unnecessarily impeded Gasly.

As a result he was handed a 3-place grid drop.

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