03/06/2023
NEWS STORY
Pierre Gasly has been penalised for impeding both Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz during today's qualifying session.
In the first incident Gasly told the stewards that he was aware that the Ferrari was behind but felt he could do nothing to avoid impeding Sainz because of the high speed delta and closeness of Charles Leclerc ahead.
However it was the view of the stewards that he could have moved further to the right at the exit of turn 13.
In the incident involving Verstappen, Alpine failed to give the Frenchman appropriate warning of the approach of the Red Bull, having told him that cars behind were on a slow lap.
For each incident he will drop 3 grid places.
"At the time I tried to do the best I could with the information I had," said the Frenchman. "There obviously are rules, anything that happened wasn't intentional and as I say I tried the best with the information I had."
Meanwhile, George Russell was given a formal warning for the incident involving his Mercedes teammate.
Russell told the stewards that as he was starting his fast lap he was looking forward and had not checked his mirrors, and his team did not inform him of the approach of Lewis Hamilton from behind.
However in mitigation, he was reacting to Carlos Sainz in front of him, the Spaniard having just finished his last lap in Q2.
In addition at the end of his out lap Russell had to slow significantly to avoid impeding Verstappen and Sainz... which would appear to have been Gasly's job.
"I'm not too sure what happened," said Russell. "It was all quite surprising. I was starting my push lap and getting the slipstream from Sainz ahead. Next thing I know Lewis was alongside me.
"We're fortunate nothing more serious happened and it was clearly a big miscommunication from all of us in the team.
"It didn't contribute to the lack of pace though and that was the main problem for me."