FIA confirm investigation after incident involving Lewis Hamilton in Japanese Grand Prix qualifying

An incident involving seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz in Japanese Grand Prix qualifying has been placed under investigation by the FIA.

It was another frustrating day at the office for Hamilton, who struggled to find pace for Ferrari and will start Sunday’s much-anticipated race at the Suzuka Circuit from eighth position.

The Brit even admitted that his final laps in qualifying were “not good enough”, adding: "I was happy to get into Q3, it’s a really tight battle, just didn't get great laps in in Q3.”

One of the big talking points from qualifying took place during Q2, when Hamilton came close a slow-moving Carlos Sainz through the first two corners, which in turn forced the Ferrari driver to back away.

In fact, it was later confirmed that Sainz had been summoned to the stewards for allegedly impeding Hamilton going into the first corner, as seen below.

The summons was issued after qualifying, with both drivers called after an “Alleged breach of Article 37.5 of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations – Car 55 [Sainz] allegedly impeding Car 44 [Hamilton] in Turn 1 at 15:47.”

Article 37.5 reads: “Any driver taking part in any free practice session, the qualifying session or the sprint qualifying session who, in the opinion of the stewards, stops unnecessarily on the circuit or unnecessarily impedes another driver shall be subject to the penalties referred to in Article 37.4.”

Now, it has been confirmed that Sainz has been hit with a three-place grid penalty after impeding Hamilton, meaning he has fallen down from his 13th-place qualifying position.

Speaking on Sky F1's coverage on Saturday, former Williams driver Jacques Villeneuve described the incident as "dangerous", adding: "Drivers shouldn't do that. They can't purely rely on radio."

Hamilton, meanwhile, is optimistic ahead of the race on Sunday.

“We are running higher than we'd like,” he said. “I don't know if everyone is in the same boat in that respect, it’s higher than we want to be from the weekend before. Charles did a great lap. I had a lot of understeer and couldn't dial it up for qualifying.”

Asked about the chances of it being a wet-race, Hamilton added: “I’m excited, I love the rain. It'll be tricky, if you have a qualifying like that you hope for rain, so hopefully it stays.”