17/07/2021
NEWS STORY
Sebastian Vettel, Carlos Sainz and Nikita Mazepin have all been issued warnings for failing to heed the race director's instructions relating to practice starts.
The three were summoned by the stewards following the Sprint, for not conducting their practice starts in the manner specified by the race director’s notes.
The intent of the notes was discussed with each driver and his team representative in the context of the sprint qualifying format.
In each case the stewards opted for a warning, but noted that future such infringements will likely result in a more severe penalty.
Meanwhile, the stewards opted to take no action over Sainz who was also alleged to have rejoined the track in an unsafe manner following his clash with George Russell which earned the Williams driver a grid penalty.
After being contacted by Russell, Sainz left the track at Turn 6 and crossed the asphalt runoff area onto the grass. From there, he crossed the grass at speed
and eventually regained the track in turn 7 as a group of cars went through the turn.
Gasly took evasive action and narrowly avoided colliding with Sainz as he came back onto the track.
Sainz described the actions he took to reduce the speed of the car in order to safely re-join and mitigate what was a potentially dangerous situation.
The stewards, having examined the video and the telemetry data, found no conclusive evidence that Sainz did not take sufficient action to avoid the situation and therefore opted to take no further action.
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