Sainz hit with rare post-race lap penalty at Silverstone

Carlos Sainz received an unusual post-race one-lap penalty after the British Grand Prix, after stewards said Williams had incorrectly allowed him to unlap himself during a late safety car period at Silverstone. Sainz had finished 12th on the road, but the ruling dropped him to 17th in the final classification. Officials said he was not entitled to overtake the safety car when the race control message for lapped cars to pass was issued, and the FIA said an earlier “Safety Car In This Lap” signal had been triggered by a software error.

The confusion came after Max Verstappen crashed late in the race and the safety car reshuffled the running order. Stewards said Silverstone’s pit lane layout helped create the mix-up, and Williams said it had made two mistakes in interpreting Sainz’s lapped status and the race control instructions. The team said it had inadvertently gained a lap it was not entitled to take. Stewards ruled that Sainz was still technically a lapped car at the relevant moment.

Charles Leclerc won the race for Ferrari, with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton behind him on the podium. The penalty was described as highly unusual and was believed to be the first of its kind since Ricardo Zunino in 1981, with some reports saying it made Sainz the first Formula 1 driver to have a lap added to his final classification as a penalty.