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Williams Racing's Carlos Sainz was given a three-place grid penalty after an incident with Lewis Hamilton during the qualifying session of the 2025 F1 Japanese Grand Prix. The Spaniard was found impeding Hamilton during the latter's hot lap in turn 1.
The qualifying session at Suzuka ended for Sainz with a P12 as he managed to pull his Williams Racing #55 into Q2 but couldn't make it into Q3. However, he was demoted to P15 after the stewards investigated an incident he shared with Hamilton. Right after his lap, he was on an inlap and impeded the Ferrari driver in turn 1.
In the onboard cam, Sainz's race engineer could be heard asking him to "go in," potentially advising him to take the inside line on turn 1 and avoid impeding Hamilton. However, he stayed on the racing track and Lewis Hamilton had to abort his hot lap as he had to get off the track.
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However, the document from the FIA read that Carlos Sainz could have possibly made a move if the team had warned him. Moreover, considering they had enough time to warn Sainz, the FIA awarded him with a three-place grid penalty.
"The team [Williams Racing] had ample warning that Car 44 [Hamilton] was on an out lap whilst Car 55 [Sainz] was on its push lap. Also, more than 8 seconds elapsed from when it was obvious Car 44 was not going into the pits, and hence was going to start a push lap, and when Car 55 could have taken appropriate action if the driver had been warned by the team," the statement read.
Carlos Sainz will now start the race from P15 if no further changes are made to the grid. He would have to make quite a few moves early in the race to score points for the team. The Spaniard's penalty will give an advantage to Fernando Alonso, Liam Lawson, and Yuki Tsunoda.
Lewis Hamilton confuses Carlos Sainz with Alex Albon after close call
The Briton was on his final hot lap when the incident happened on turn 1. It was quite a close one for Hamilton because he could be seen taking the racing line but pulled out of the track just in time to avoid a crash.
As he cleared off, his frustration could be felt on the team radio while reporting the incident to Ferrari. He could be heard saying "Albon", confusing Carlos Sainz with his teammate.
"Albon just, just got slow! Sh*t. Albon blocked me big time into turn 1," he said.
This has been a difficult start to Lewis Hamilton's first season in a Ferrari. Apart from his victory during the Sprint in China, he hasn't had any competitive results, considering his disqualification in the previous race (for excessive skidwear). While he did manage to pull into Q3 despite this incident in Japan earlier today, he only qualified P8, behind Isack Hadjar's VCARB.
