Carlos Sainz explains bizarre plastic issue in Qatar GP qualifying as stewards punish Williams

Carlos Sainz explained that plastic stickers picked up from the Williams garage floor compromised his Qatar GP Q3 run

Carlos Sainz reflected on a difficult qualifying session for the Qatar Grand Prix, which was impacted by plastic stuck on his rear tyres during Q3.

The plastic stickers transferred from the floor of the garage onto the rear tyres before they flew off after four or five corners.

"No, I think we picked up a plastic leaving the pits, the tyres got the whole plastic, and I spent four or five corners trying to get rid of the plastic," the Spanish driver told Sky Sports F1. "And then I think that plastic damaged the bodywork and the team managed to repair it, but just by putting another plastic on top basically.

"So I don't know if we were downforce down or not, they will let me know now in the debrief how much it really impacted us, but for sure it's not ideal to start a Q3 with an issue like that. It puts you a bit under pressure and a bit in chaos everywhere but we managed to recover well."

He added: "We hit the 20.2, which was my Q2 lap time, which for me was not much in it. More than that, I repeated 20.2 multiple times today and I just couldn't get any quicker than that. So happy to do the 20.2, be P7 for tomorrow, clean side of the grid and fight for the top six tomorrow."

The Williams driver will start the race at the Losail International Circuit from seventh on the grid alongside Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso in eighth.

Looking ahead to what is achievable during the race tomorrow, Sainz set his sights on Racing Bulls driver Isack Hadjar as his race start target.

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"I think one of my best chances is Isack. We're very equal on pace, he was a tenth quicker today in quali but on race pace, I think we always come back a bit, and it will be very tight with him.

"So probably whoever gets to Turn 1 could be ahead, but then there's two pitstops to do. Selecting well the timing of the pitstop will be crucial so let's see."

Williams was fined €5000 for releasing the car in an unsafe condition. "The Stewards heard from the Atlassian Williams Racing team representative and reviewed video and team radio video evidence," the Stewards noted.

"The team advised that it had been using this floor sticker since mid-season and had not previously experienced any problems with it peeling off the floor. However ultimately the team is responsible for ensuring that the car is not released in an unsafe condition and video evidence showed that the driver had great difficulty in controlling the car, thus the Stewards determine that this was an unsafe situation."