Isack Hadjar handed Canadian GP penalty blow after wrong 'abandoned' advice

Isack Hadjar has unsurprisingly been handed a three-place grid penalty for the Canadian Grand Prix for impeding Carlos Sainz.

The incident came during the first qualifying session at Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, and was as obvious a case as the stewards are likely to deal with.

With Sainz on a push lap in his Williams and striving to get into Q2, he was clearly baulked by the Racing Bulls driver, leading to fury over the radio.

It proved damaging as Sainz missed out on progress by just 0.020s, whilst Hadjar went on to reach Q3 where he qualified ninth, but he will now drop to 12th.

A stewards' report read: "Car 6 [Hadjar] was on an in-lap and was caught by car 55 [Sainz] on a push lap, at the entry to turn 6. 

"Although car 6 attempted to move off the racing line to leave space for car 55, the move was too late. The driver of car 6 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."