The FIA overturned the decision on Carlos Sainz's penalty.

      On Friday, hearings were held at the FIA at Williams' request regarding Carlos Sainz, who had been penalized by the stewards of the Dutch Grand Prix for a collision with the car of Red Bull Racing driver Liam Lawson. The Spaniard was then found to be at fault for the incident and not only received a 10-second penalty but also two penalty points on his super licence. During yesterday’s hearings the punishment was reviewed and the penalty points were rescinded, although it is understood that the race results in Zandvoort cannot be adjusted because the Spanish driver had already served the 10-second penalty. But now the FIA stewards have acknowledged that they should not have penalized Sainz, and that the incident should have been regarded as a racing incident. Both Carlos and his team had insisted on this from the start, arguing that the stewards had failed to take into account the fact that Lawson’s car suddenly lost stability, which was one of the factors that led to the collision. For yesterday’s hearings Williams prepared additional evidence to support their position, including footage from cameras mounted on Sainz’s car. The FIA also had recordings from the onboard cameras of the Racing Bulls car. On race day the stewards did not have access to this data because the teams download it from the cars’ onboard systems only after the finish. During the re-examination the stewards heard from representatives of both teams and the drivers and agreed with Williams that it was indeed a racing incident. “The stewards agreed that the cause of the collision was the instantaneous loss of control of car No. 30 (Lawson). However, from the stewards’ point of view neither driver bears full or predominant responsibility for the collision,” the FIA said. “Car No. 55 (Sainz) did influence the incident, as the driver took a risk and was following too closely on the outside of car No. 30… The stewards do not have the authority to overturn the (10-second) penalty by altering the race classification, but they took into account that in the final classification car No. 55 finished 17 seconds ahead of car No. 30. The decision (on the penalty) is overturned, therefore the two penalty points issued to the driver of car No. 55 are annulled.” The Williams team welcomes the federation’s verdict: “We are grateful to the stewards for reviewing the penalty issued to Carlos in Zandvoort, and pleased that they have now determined that he was not at fault and that it was a racing incident. Although we are disappointed that the original decision affected our race, mistakes are also part of motorsport, and we will continue constructive cooperation with the FIA with the aim of improving the officiating process, and in the future also adjusting the sporting regulations.”