Lewis Hamilton keeps Russian GP pole after post-qualifying investigation

Russian GP polesitter Lewis Hamilton faces no further action from stewards for a driving infringement during Q1 in Sochi qualifying.

Hamilton was one of four drivers - Romain Grosjean, Kevin Magnussen and Nicholas Latifi being the others - called to explain to the stewards why they did not follow the race directors' instructions about to do when running wide off the track at Turn Two.

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After speaking to the quartet, stewards ruled that while they did break the rules no further punishment was warranted as their respective offending laps had already been deleted during the course of the opening session.

A stewards' statement for each driver read: "The driver left the track at turn 2 and did not manage to re-join the track as defined in the Event Notes (v3) 22.1.

"The driver accepted that he had not followed the instructions and further he accepted that in a race there would be a penalty. The Stewards determined that there was no advantage, as the relevant lap time was deleted according to Doc 27.

"Furthermore, to be consistent with previous decisions, the Stewards considered the precedents set out in Doc. 25 of the 2018 Spanish Gran Prix and Doc. 31 of the 2019 Canadian Grand Prix."

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However, stewards did warn all drivers that 5-second penalties would likely be applied to any driver who did likewise in the race.

"The Stewards remind all teams and drivers, that a failure to negotiate turn 2 as defined in the Event Notes during the race will likely lead to a 5 sec time penalty," the stewards added.

The race directors' notes had stated: "Each time any car fails to negotiate Turn 2 by using the track, and who passes to the left of, or has any part of the car over the first orange kerb element prior to the apex, or to the left of the orange apex sausage at Turn 2, must then re-join the track by driving around the array of blocks as indicated by the arrows before the rejoining the track at Turn 3."

Replays of the incident in question with Hamilton showed the Mercedes' left-hand wheels ran over the orange kerb but the world champion immediately returned to the circuit.

Speaking to Sky F1 before talking to the stewards, Hamilton had said: "I think it should be okay."