The race stewards in Canada reviewed the Carlos Sainz–Isack Hadjar impeding incident and issued their decision regarding the penalty.
Carlos Sainz and Isack Hadjar were involved in a heated impeding episode during Q1 of qualifying in Canada.
The Spaniard, driving for Williams, was on his final flying lap and completing his run when he encountered the Racing Bulls driver’s car obstructing his path.
This incident prevented car #55 from improving in the final sector, and he missed out on advancing to Q2 by just 20 thousandths of a second. Hadjar, on the other hand, made it through. Carlos Sainz immediately reported a “massive impeding” by his rival over the team radio.
The incident was noted and reviewed by the race stewards, who later issued their verdict. It’s worth noting that Carlos Sainz will start from sixteenth position tomorrow due to the penalty already given to Yuki Tsunoda (who drops to last; here are the full starting grid details).
The stewards decided to hand a 3-place grid penalty to Hadjar, who will therefore start from twelfth instead of ninth.
“Car 6 was on an in-lap and was caught by car 55 on a push lap at the entry to turn 6,” reads the official FIA document. “While car 6 attempted to move off the racing line to give space to car 55, the move came too late.”
Isack Hadjar admitted that there had indeed been impeding toward Carlos Sainz. The Racing Bulls driver told the stewards that the team had warned him of the Spaniard’s approach. However, the same team had told him that the Williams driver was aborting his lap.
Isack Hadjar had seen Sainz in his mirrors, but relied on the information from the pit wall. Only afterward did he realize the information was wrong and did his best to move out of the way and let Sainz through.
For this reason, the stewards decided to penalize Isack Hadjar for the impeding incident involving Carlos Sainz.
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