Vettel Cops a 3-Place Grid Penalty for Q3 Incident

Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel qualified 3rd fastest behind the two Mercedes drivers. Unfortunately, the German has been demoted to sixth on the grid after being found guilty of impeding Renault’s Carlos Sainz during qualifying.

Vettel had explained that he was unsighted as the Renault climbed the hill at the Red Bull Ring. Furthermore, he wasn’t given any warning by his Ferrari team that Sainz was closing in.

But, while stewards accepted Vettel’s explanation that he was unaware of the oncoming Renault. The Ferrari team radio had not even informed him and he could not see Sainz in his mirrors. But, they ruled that ‘being aware of the issue of rear vision with his mirrors, [Vettel] should not have been so slow and on the racing line, during a slowdown lap in qualification’.

The stewards decreed that a drop of three grid positions was ‘consistent with all other similar incidents’ so far this season. They also issued an additional penalty point on Vettel’s superlicence, taking him on to six for the last 12 months.

As a result of Vettel’s penalty, team-mate Kimi Raikkonen has been promoted to third. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen joins him on the 2nd row in fourth and Haas’ driver Romain Grosjean to fifth. Vettel will start sixth on row three ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, with the German now four places behind championship leader Lewis Hamilton who he trails by 14 points.

The 4-time world champion said: “It’s impossible to see, I wasn’t told anything, normally I get told very well.

“I can only apologise and fortunately it didn’t make a difference for him.”

Sainz had progressed to the top-ten shootout and qualified ninth at the time of the incident. The Spaniard had to run off track at Turn One to avoid the Ferrari, damaging his car in the process.