Max Verstappen 'unsafe situation' sparks stewards verdict after Lewis Hamilton incident

Max Verstappen has escaped punishment from the stewards at the Singapore Grand Prix for a yellow-flag infringement in sprint qualifying.

It means Verstappen will start from pole position for the sprint at the Marina Bay Street Circuit on Saturday after beating George Russell and Charles Leclerc to the quickest effort under the lights in SQ3.

Midway through SQ1, however, a Sergio Perez crash triggered single yellow flags, starting the confluence of events that culminated with the Red Bull driver being investigated.

After his initial contact with the wall, the Cadillac driver left debris strewn across the track as he drove the ailing machine back to the pits.

That was eventually upgraded to a red flag, but beforehand, Verstappen was caught overtaking Lewis Hamilton directly underneath a yellow-flag light panel.

A large part of Perez's front wing was outside Verstappen on the edge of the corner, whilst the Ferrari had pulled over to the inside on the right, with the four-time F1 drivers' champion going past on the left.

According to the stewards' penalty guidelines, passing under single yellow-flag conditions in a qualifying session comes with a five-place grid penalty.

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Explaining their decision not to punish Verstappen, a stewards' document read: "As car 3 [Verstappen] was exiting Turn 7 on a push lap, a single yellow flag was displayed. Car 44 [Hamilton] was ahead of car 3 and had been warned of car 3’s approach.

"The driver of car 44 said that after exiting Turn 7, he slowed and moved to the right to ensure he was off the racing line. Car 3 overtook car 44 prior to Turn 8 while both cars were still in the yellow flag sector. Car 3 then abandoned the push lap.

"The driver of car 3 explained that he was on throttle exiting Turn 7 and then saw the yellow flag and lifted. This was confirmed by telemetry. Within approximately 40 metres of entering the yellow flag sector, the driver of car 3 had lifted fully off throttle.

"The driver of car 44 was braking and had reduced speed to less than 60km/h at the point car 3 overtook. Because car 3 was on a push lap and was on throttle out of Turn 7 and car 44 had slowed, the speed differential at the point of the overlap was significant despite the fact that the driver of car 3 had also started braking.

"The stewards were satisfied that the driver of car 3 reacted appropriately to the yellow flag by lifting off the throttle and reducing speed.

"The speed of car 3 at the overtake point was some 70km/h less than car 3’s speed on another push lap in the same session.

"The driver of car 3 explained that to have avoided the overtake would have required him to have braked very heavily and he considered to have done so would have potentially created an unsafe situation.

"The stewards determined that the driver of car 3 breached the yellow flag regulation by overtaking car 44.

"However, the stewards were satisfied that the overtake was an unfortunate consequence of the significant closing speed differential and, in these circumstances, determined not to impose a penalty."