Carlos Sainz wants the FIA to explain why he had to wait until the end of a safety car period to regain a position that Sergio Perez wrongly took from him.
The Ferrari driver came out of the pits slightly ahead of his rival following stopping on lap 16 under the safety car. However, Perez held on to third place despite a cut safety car line past the Spaniard.
Perez did not give way until the race resumed four laps later. Sainz had expected this kind of situation to unfold earlier in the week, saying drivers should be prepared to give up places “immediately” if they got them wrong.
“You can’t take three or four turns to give up the position,” he said already on Thursday. “That’s why the rulebook has to be super clear, has to be enforced in a moment when there’s friction.”
Speaking following the race, Sainz said the incident with Perez was “a number 1 priority which we must discuss with the FIA. There is a safety car line, the regulations are clear. Why have they not been applied?”.
For Sainz it was not sporty even if there is a blur in case of safety car.
“It was the FIA who should have intervened straight away. Basically, Sergio lost the opportunity to fight with me on the restart and I lost the opportunity to fight with Max for not taking my position back during the safety car. It’s not sporting, especially since Max was putting pressure on Charles.”
“We had a lot of laps to do it. The FIA didn’t interfere and I think for the fun of racing in Formula 1, this stuff needs to happen faster and more efficiently.”
“We created a mess which for me is unnecessary given that we did six laps behind the safety car and there were a million opportunities for Sergio to let me through.
“If I had been overtaken by Russell for example, what would we have done? Should Sergio have let Russell and me pass, which would have been extremely unfair for him too? Or Sergio does not return the position to me because that there’s Russell between him and me and that’s grossly unfair to me?”
“So I don’t know, it’s just those kinds of things that as a sport we need to keep improving at because I think we need to simplify things and just make it faster and easier to understand. for everyone and even for the pilots.”
