SILVERSTONE, U.K. -- George Russell will drop to 12th place on the grid for Sunday's British Grand Prix after picking up a three-place grid penalty for colliding with Carlos Sainz on the opening lap of Saturday's sprint race.
Russell started eighth on the grid for Formula One's inaugural sprint race, which sets the grid for the grand prix, but collided with Sainz on the opening lap at Brooklands, dropping the Ferrari driver to the back of the field.
Russell locked his front left tyre and then slid wide into Sainz who was trying to pass the Williams driver around the outside, pushing Sainz off the track.
Sainz was able to recover to 11th in the sprint race, but will start the grand prix in tenth, two places ahead of Russell, who finished ninth in the sprint but will drop to 12th on the grid with the penalty.
The stewards issued the penalty, along with one penalty on Russell's superlicence, for "causing a collision".
"Cars 63 [Russell] and 55 [Sainz] approached Turn 6 with Car 63 on the inside, in the middle of the track, and Car 55 on the outside," the stewards statement said. "Car 63 locked the front brakes briefly and then understeered towards the edge of the track at the exit of the turn and contacted Car 55, which was forced off the circuit and on to the grass. Car 63 is judged at fault for the incident.
"The Stewards note that breaches of the regulations of this sort in a race normally result in time penalties, which are scaled based on normal Grand Prix race lengths. Both because of the shorter length of Sprint Qualifying and because it is used to establish the grid for the race, the Stewards feel that grid position penalties, as imposed here, are more appropriate."
Speaking to the media before the steward's report, Russell said there was nothing he could do to avoid the collision.
"Carlos came from quite wide and sort of cut in on me," Russell said. "I saw it, but there was nothing really more I could have done with the angle I was at.
"I was trying to steer more, I was on the brakes, but as you can see I started to lock up as he was closing the door, so there was nothing more I could have done.
Sainz added: "I think it's pretty obvious, sometimes we see the people on the inside tend to have a moment, lock-ups or lose the car. I tried to give him as much space as I could, at one point I even opened the steering wheel just to let him go.
"Even like that, he couldn't control that car and bumped into me. A pretty obvious mistake, it can happen to anyone, but the fact he finished in front, I don't think it's the best."
Sainz was also investigated for re-joining the track in an unsafe manner, but the stewards opted not to issue a penalty.
"After being contacted by Car 63, Car 55 left the track at Turn 6 and crossed the asphalt runoff area onto the grass," a separate stewards' statement added. "From there, Car 55 crossed the grass at speed and eventually regained the track in Turn 7 as a group of cars went through the turn. Car 10 [Pierre Gasly] took evasive action and narrowly avoided colliding with Car 55 as it came back onto the track.
"The driver of Car 55 described the actions he took to reduce the speed of the car in order to safely re-join and mitigate what was a potentially dangerous situation. The Stewards examined the video and the telemetry data and found no conclusive evidence that the driver of Car 55 did not take sufficient action to avoid the situation."
Sainz, Sebastian Vettel and Nikita Mazepin were also all investigated for failing to follow the race director's notes for practice starts in second practice, but all three were issued with warnings rather than penalties.