Carlos Sainz has been given an official warning for his "erratic driving" during qualifying.

The Spaniard was on a cool-down lap while Max Verstappen was on an out lap.

When the Dutchman caught up with the Ferrari and tried to pass however, Sainz defended his position and did it in a manner that was "reasonably unpredictable for the pursuing car".

During the subsequent hearing, Sainz stated that he could not afford being passed by another car as he had to stay below the maximum lap time between SC lines 2 and 1.

Whilst this was accepted by the stewards as well as by Verstappen, the measures taken by the Spaniard were deemed to be unnecessary given the fact that the
incident happened in qualifying and cars are not supposed to directly race each other while preparing for flying laps.

Consequently the stewards determined that a warning was appropriate on this occasion given the circumstances.

Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton, Oscar Piastri and AlphaTauri teammates Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson were all summoned for six similar offences (twice for Hamilton and Tsunoda) being that they exceeded the time limit between the safety car lines during qualifying.

Though only Hamilton was personally summoned by the stewards, no further action was taken against any of them.

"The drivers took appropriate actions to not impede other drivers, and in all cases they slowed down significantly to allow other drivers to pass while giving those drivers a clear track," read the official statement.

"The stewards therefore determine that they did not drive ‘unnecessarily slowly’, and that evidently the reason they were above the maximum time was due to their appropriate actions and take no further action."

However, noting that "in most of the incidents the fact that other cars were making a gap at the end of the lap influenced the drivers trying to maintain their delta time", the drivers were reminded once again "that no car may be driven unnecessarily slowly and the stewards will continue to monitor the issue closely".

Check out our Friday gallery from Lusail here.