Qualifying for the 2017 United States Grand Prix would not produce the results the Williams Martini team had hoped for but their disappointment was added to when Lance Stroll would receive a penalty for blocking Grosjean.

Grosjean had to take avoiding action on a flying lap in the first period as Lance attempted to move out of his way to the right, at the same time the Haas driver was already taking to that side to try to pass.

An FIA statement said: "The stewards examined multiple angles of video evidence, including CCTV not available on the broadcast and radio calls to car 18, and heard from Lance Stroll, the driver of car 18, Romain Grosjean, the driver of car 8 and the team representatives.

"Stroll was on a slow lap, Grosjean on a fast lap. Stroll was changing settings under direction of his engineer and got a very late call about Grosjean overtaking.

"Stroll immediately moved right and off the track, but Grosjean was already outside track limits and made the decision to overtake on the right, as Stroll moved right.

"It was obvious Stroll was not able to see Grosjean approaching in his mirrors, and he stated he could not move to the left as [Daniil] Kvyat was passing him on that side.

"The stewards believe Stroll did what he could in the circumstances but nevertheless this was potentially a very dangerous situation as the speed differential between the two cars was in excess of 100 km/h at the apex of Turn 19.

"The stewards believe the team should have given Stroll more advance warning that Grosjean was approaching rapidly."

Despite his three-place grid penalty, Lance will start the race from sixteenth benefitting from penalties for Magnussen, Hulkenberg and Hartley.