Toro Rosso summoned over unsafe car

Toro Rosso has been summoned to see the stewards for trying to enter an unsafe car in scrutineering for the British Grand Prix.

In a statement released by FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer, Carlos Sainz's car was submitted with a damaged wheel tether that Toro Rosso was requested to replace but refused. After further analysis of the damaged part, Bauer referred the incident to the stewards, having felt the team was aware of the damage before entering scrutineering.

"During initial scrutineering car number 55 was found to have a damaged wheel tether," Bauer said. "The scrutineers made the team Scuderia Toro Rosso aware of this and asked the team to replace it.

"The team refused to follow the instructions of the scrutineers and therefore the technical delegate checked the damaged tether himself and found that the tether was not only damaged but also several cut fibres were knotted together. Therefore the team was aware of the damaged tether and presented the car in an unsafe condition for scrutineering.

"In my opinion this is a breach of Article 3.3 of the 2017 Sporting Regulations and I am referring this matter to the stewards for their consideration."

Article 3.3 of the Sporting Regulations states: "The presentation of a car for scrutineering will be deemed an implicit statement of conformity."

Toro Rosso's team manager Graham Watson and technical director James Key visited the stewards at 15:30 local time to discuss the incident.

Every car is required to pass pre-race scrutineering on Thursday of each race weekend, which is designed to check the safety aspects of the car including items such as seatbelts, fire extinguishers, wheel tethers and braking systems.