Sutil fined for impeding Webber

Force India's Adrian Sutil was demoted to the back row of the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix starting grid on Saturday for impeding Red Bull's Mark Webber in qualifying.

Webber qualified 19th of the 20 drivers after being obstructed by the German, who was 16th fastest, in the first part of qualifying at the Sakhir circuit.

The penalty means Webber will now start ahead of Sutil on Sunday.

"I was just trying to make a gap to [Renault's Fernando] Alonso to start my lap and Mark came in on a flying lap but I didn't know that," said Sutil. "It was a misunderstanding and I apologised to Mark after the end of the session."

Webber, who had been second in the previous race in China, was unimpressed.

"I thought he knew I was on a timed lap, but it turns out he thought I was on an out-lap [before the timed lap] so he tried to block me," said Webber of the incident at the end of the session.

"It was a mess because I lost both laps. I lost the end of that lap and I couldn't start the next one. The team did a poor job for him I think because I had been coming from the previous 40 seconds. He got snookered by his team."