Angry Kvyat tells team-mate to keep distance

"This should not have happened today".

The Russian continued his race but was hit with a drive-thru penalty for rejoining the circuit in an unsafe manner.

"With these tricky conditions, it's hard to say what to expect for tomorrow, but it will for sure be exciting - we have a good opportunity if the weather stays like this, as it opens up strategy options and opportunities and I look forward to a good race!" said Sainz.

"We went around Turn 11 and then obviously you get to the dirty line and have understeer into Turn 12", explained Kvyat who appears to believe that two cars going in to Becketts is always a good idea. So when you put yourself there, you know the collision is 90 per cent unavoidable.

"Unfortunately, we suffered a suspension failure in Q2 which meant I couldn't get back out on track until the very final minutes of the session - I'd like to thank the mechanics for being so fast in getting the auto out again!" said Sainz.

"But it didn't happen". You just put yourself there and say to your teammate "OK, you just crash into me", that's what I believe happened, and I completely disagree with the penalty.

"I'm relaxed, it's one of those things that happens once or twice a year and we need to keep our head up and cheer up the whole team, as they must be disappointed about it, and turn the page".

"I've spoken with James (Key), and we're both in agreement that we're both responsible for what happened", he revealed. It's a bit of a shame.

Misunderstanding or not, though he clearly saw the incident slightly differently, Sainz wants the discussion kept behind closed doors.

"I think the images speak for themselves so I'm not going to comment".

"We were battling, giving each other quite a lot of room, until one vehicle lost control and hit the other one".

But that wasn't the end of it unfortunately for Kvyat who was also handed two penalty points on his superlicense, bringing his total to nine and three points short of a race ban.

It followed a similar penalty in Austria, where Kvyat was involved in a Turn 1 crash that ended both Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen's races.

"I don't expect anything to change", said Kvyat.

"The punishment was for leaving the track and rejoining unsafely, but I didn't leave the track, me and the team agreed on that", he said.

Asked if he feels the Stewards are singling him out, he said: "I believe so".

"A drivethrough is extremely strong". My race is damaged, his race is damaged, and they penalise me. It doesn't feel very nice. "It makes everything look a lot worse than it really was".