Isack Hadjar has been demoted three places on the grid for the Canadian Grand Prix for impeding Carlos Sainz Jnr.
The Racing Bulls driver was on the racing line approaching turn six, despite not being on a flying lap, when Sainz caught him on his final lap in Q1. The Williams driver said he lost several tenths of a second passing Hadjar, and subsequently missed the cut for Q2 by two hundredths of a second.
The stewards ruled Hadjar’s team incorrectly informed him that Sainz was not on a flying lap. Hadjar did not dispute the fact he held the Williams up.
“Car six [Hadjar] was on an in-lap and was caught by car 55 [Sainz], on a push lap, at the entry to turn six,” the stewards noted. “Although car six attempted to move off the racing line to leave space for car 55, the move was too late.
“The driver of car six agreed that car 55 was impeded. He explained that he had earlier been told by his team that car 55 was approaching on a push lap but the team then told him that car 55 had abandoned the lap. He said that although he saw car 55 in his mirrors, he relied upon what he had been told by his team and when he realised the information was wrong he did his best to move out of the way.
“The standard penalty for this infringement during qualifying in the penalty guidelines is a three grid position penalty regardless of whether the incident was the fault of the driver or the team.”
Hadjar’s penalty will drop him to 12th on the grid. Sainz originally qualified 17th but will gain one place due to Yuki Tsunoda’s penalty.
The stewards also reprimanded Esteban Ocon for failing to obey the race director’s instruction for drivers on slow laps to pull to the right between turns 12 and 13 to allow quicker drivers by. Charles Leclerc had to pull off the racing line to pass Ocon on his right at one of the fastest points on the circuit. The stewards applied the penalty despite acknowledging Leclerc was not impeded.
Updated 2025 Canadian Grand Prix grid
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