Carlos Sainz learns P3 fate after Las Vegas stewards' investigation
Carlos Sainz escapes penalty for allegedly rejoining the circuit unsafely in Las Vegas qualifying.
Williams driver Carlos Sainz has avoided a penalty for an incident with Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll during qualifying at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Sainz faced a stewards’ investigation having allegedly rejoined the circuit in an unsafe manner ahead of Stroll after going off down the run-off area at at Turn 5 during the first part of qualifying in Sin City.
The incident did not affect either driver as both safely progressed to Q2, though Stroll would go on to be knocked out with a time only good enough for 12th after a tyre gamble backfired in the second session.
Aston Martin acknowledged that Sainz did not impede Stroll and the stewards opted to take no further action.
“The team representative of Car 18 stated that the rejoining of Car 55 did not cause any issue to the driver of Car 18 and stated that his driver did not consider the manoeuvre to be unsafe on the part of the driver of Car 55,” the stewards said.
“In view of the above and the poor visibility due to the adverse weather conditions, plus the presence of yellow flags, we determine to take no further action.”
Williams breathe sigh of relief
The verdict marks a massive relief for Williams and Sainz, who qualified a surprise third on the grid for Sunday’s grand prix.
Sainz briefly held provisional pole position before being pipped by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and McLaren’s Lando Norris.
Giving his side of the story, Sainz said: “You have very low visibility so you are not aware who is coming and who is not.
“I know I’m generating a yellow flag so I’m trying to remove myself from the yellow flag as soon as possible. I think everyone was just on build laps as we were trying to get the tyres up to temperature.
“The conditions were treacherous out there. You cannot imagine how tricky it was, the low visibility and everything and I just couldn’t do a better job.”
Speaking about his brilliant qualifying performance, Sainz added: "This track suited our car in the dry. In the wet in FP3, we didn't look very promising but we made some changes to the car that helped in the wet which allowed me to go fastest in Q1, Q2.
"On the intermediates I knew the others would catch up a bit. I'm happy with P3. I would have loved to have been on pole but we were not quite there."
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