Lance Stroll has been penalised for blocking Romain Grosjean in Formula 1 qualifying for the United States Grand Prix.
Grosjean had to take avoiding action at high speed between the final corners on a flying lap in Q1 as Stroll attempted to move out of his way to the right, at the same time the Haas driver was already taking to that side to try to pass.
An FIA statement said: “The stewards examined multiple angles of video evidence, including CCTV not available on the broadcast and radio calls to car 18, and heard from Lance Stroll, the driver of car 18, Romain Grosjean, the driver of car 8 and the team representatives.
“Stroll was on a slow lap, Grosjean on a fast lap. Stroll was changing settings under direction of his engineer and got a very late call about Grosjean overtaking.
“Stroll immediately moved right and off the track, but Grosjean was already outside track limits and made the decision to overtake on the right, as Stroll moved right.
“It was obvious Stroll was not able to see Grosjean approaching in his mirrors, and he stated he could not move to the left as [Daniil] Kvyat was passing him on that side.
“The stewards believe Stroll did what he could in the circumstances but nevertheless this was potentially a very dangerous situation as the speed differential between the two cars was in excess of 100 km/h at the apex of Turn 19.
“The stewards believe the team should have given Stroll more advance warning that Grosjean was approaching rapidly.”
While Grosjean recovered from the run-in to progress to Q2 by 0.007s, Stroll was eliminated in the first segment having posted the 17th-quickest time and reporting an engine deployment issue.
Despite his three-place grid penalty, the Canadian is set to start 16th, benefitting from penalties for Kevin Magnussen, Nico Hulkenberg and Brendon Hartley.