Stewards opt not to punish Nico Hulkenberg despite his impeding of Carlos Sainz in qualifying.

Video showed that the German was driving slowly on the racing line on the approach to Turn 5. Sainz arrived from behind on a push lap and had to abandon the lap.

That the Spaniard was impeded was not in dispute, the issue was whether Sainz had been 'unnecessarily' impeded.

Audi told the stewards that they believed, based on timing information to which they subscribed, sourced from the official timekeeping provider, that Sainz had already taken the chequered flag and conveyed that information to Hulkenberg by radio. Therefore the German did not expect Sainz to still be on a push lap when he was closing in.

The stewards acknowledged the fact that the data referenced by Audi led the team to reasonably believe that Sainz had received the chequered flag. Indeed, it was evident from the Spaniard's radio messages that Williams had formed the same belief relying on the same data.

The misunderstanding was revealed to be attributable to the information initially received by the teams not being fully synchronised and only being displayed in a correct manner after a short period of time.

However, that post-processing did not occur until Sainz arrived behind Hulkenberg, depriving the team of any reasonable opportunity to correct the information conveyed to its driver.

In the stewards' assessment, because the source of the data upon which Audi relied was the official timing provider, it was not unreasonable for the team to have relied upon it, even though the team also had available to it the official timing data which conflicted.

On the objective facts, the stewards determined that Sainz was unnecessarily impeded. However, there were extraordinary mitigating circumstances in this case because the incident was attributable to the team's reliance on information that was, for a brief period, inconsistent.

Consequently, no penalty was applied.

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