As the drivers approached turn one following the second red flag restart, the Williams of Logan Sargeant was towards the back of the pack, out of points contention.
With chaos reigning near the front of the field when Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz crashed into the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, Sargeant ploughed into the back of the AlphaTauri of Nyck de Vries.
The entire field has switched to soft tyres, with Sargeant on a new set and de Vries on a used set.
Sargeant claimed he was surprised by the incident, calling it a “pretty weird” restart, as it left only 12 cars able to make it to the chequered flag.
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“I felt like I braked [like] I did on the previous two starts,” Sargeant said post-race, “but it just seemed like nothing was up to temperature.”
“I hit the pedal and it was immediate. Both fronts locked and there was nothing I could do from there,” he explained.
Sargeant revealed he had apologised to de Vries after the incident: “I didn’t want to end the day like that. It was a tough enough day as it was. It was disappointing.”
While the stewards investigated the crashes towards the front of the field, Sargeant’s crash with de Vries was not looked into, with fans criticising the decision from officials.
“Not that anyone cares but Logan Sargeant should absolutely get 3-place grid penalty for the next race,” a fan said, “Regardless if its for P1 or P20, you’ve got to have consistency.”
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“Penalties only seem to matter or get applied if it’s somewhere vaguely near the front,” one Twitter user claimed.
“I’m clueless why it wasn’t investigated,” another said.
Sainz was handed a five second penalty that dropped him completely out of the points for causing a collision with Alonso, while the FIA ruled a crash between the Alpines of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon was just a “racing incident.”