Ferrari have been fined €5,000 for an unsafe release after Carlos Sainz was introduced into the path of Lewis Hamilton during qualifying in Qatar.

Ferrari released Sainz just as Hamilton was heading down the pit lane and the Mercedes driver had to slow down to avoid a collision.

Ferrari hit with FIA fine after unsafe release

It came as no surprise to see Sainz, Hamilton and tema representatives summoned to the stewards following the session with unsafe releases one of the most commonly punished infringements in F1.

Hearing from the drivers and teams, the FIA learned that the number 1 mechanic responsible for releasing Sainz signalled before the driver was ready, resulting in a small delay that ultimately saw Sainz come out ahead of Hamilton.

Hamilton had to take avoiding action and therefore it was a breach of Article 34.14 and the stewards fined Ferrari the standard amount of €5,000.

Away from the incident, Sainz qualified seventh as he struggled to match the pace of team-mate Charles Leclerc and was frustrated that changes to the car were unable to fix “fundamental issues”

“We definitely tried quite a few things, both on set up, but also in tyre preparation,” Sainz said. “But it just didn’t seem to change our fundamental issues.

“I think when you’re talking about tyre preparation, you’re talking about the last tenth while when you’re like three or four tenths and you see all the medium speed corners, you’re just lacking minimum speeds and a bit of the corner balance. You realise that maybe it’s just not quite there but anything can happen still tomorrow.”

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Sainz and Ferrari’s main goal this weekend is preventing McLaren from winning the Constructors’ title but with the McLaren duo in third and fourth, Sainz said they needed to be ahead of them at this late stage.

“I don’t think it’s about third and fourth. I think it’s about recovering points and then I think we just need to finish ahead of them and independently of the position,” Sainz said.

“Of course it’s good for us if they don’t win with P1 and P2 but even if they finish P3 and 4 and ahead of us, it’s still going to be almost Mission Impossible in Abu Dhabi.”

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