Carlos Sainz Jr baffled by Russian Grand Prix penalty

The stewards ruled that Sainz's Toro Rosso had forced Palmer's Renault off-track between Turns 2 and 3 during a battle for 13th place near half-distance.

The Spaniard was given a 10-second penalty on his race time, which dropped him from 11th on the road to 12th, and two penalty points on his licence.

"At the exit of Turn 2, if you want to pass you have to go on the exit of Turn 3," Sainz told Autosport.

"But he decided to go around the outside [through Turn 3] and I was never expecting him. I was looking in my left mirror to see him, then suddenly he loses the car on the dirty part of the exit of Turn 2, then I realised there was someone on my left and we touched.

"Because of this touch, first he loses the car and then he goes wide. And then I think the stewards thought I forced him off the track.

"To get a 10-second penalty for this kind of accident for me is a bit like you cannot even race anyone. I didn't even see him, he just lost the car a bit by himself by wheelspin on the dirty side."

Sainz's race was complicated at the start when his Toro Rosso picked up debris from the Turn 2 collision between Daniil Kvyat, Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo.

"I picked up a part of Kvyat's front wing which went into my radiator and sidepod, then from the exit of Turn 2 when the safety car came out I had no power in the engine because it went into protection mode," Sainz explained.

"I had to do a thousand switches to get it to work without misfires, but 70bhp down. So my first stint on the super-soft was done with like 40 or 50 points less of downforce. We were 2s per lap slower without the downforce and then no power on the engine, so we decided to stop early on lap 12 to get rid of whatever it was on the car. Stopping on lap 12 for the soft and doing 40 laps on it, we knew the whole race was compromised."