Stewards at the Bahrain Grand Prix have penalised Adrian Sutil by dropping the Force India driver three places down the grid ahead of Sunday's race.

The German, despite qualifying a best ever 16th at the Sakhir track, was found guilty of impeding Red Bull's Mark Webber in the first round of qualifying. Sutil drops to 19th, promoting Webber to 18th.

"Mark was on a flying lap, but I didn't know that. I just tried to stay in my position to get a clear start to the lap," the 26-year-old, who apologised to Webber in person on Saturday, said.

Webber, whose team-mate Sebastian Vettel qualified third, said the block ruined two of his decisive flying laps in the session.

"I had nowhere to go in the last corner of my first lap and then Sutil slipstreamed past me for the start of my second, so my race is screwed," he said.