Carlos Sainz has escaped a penalty for a dangerous moment during qualifying with Oscar Piastri.
Photo credit: Scuderia Ferrari
As the Spaniard exited the pits during Q1, he immediately darted towards the racing line and failed to spot Oscar Piastri coming in the process. The Australian had to taken avoiding action to make sure the pair didn’t have a collision at a second straight Grand Prix weekend.
The pair went to the stewards after qualifying and once again Ferrari’s lack of communication on the radio for their drivers was emphasised by them.
Although Sainz caused a ‘potentially dangerous’ situation in the way he headed straight for the racing line, he received a reprimand because of the lack of communication. Instead, Ferrari got hit with a 5,000 euro fine.
Stewards explanation
“Sainz was exiting the pits and immediately moved to the racing line before turn 2. In doing so Piastri who was on track, had to take avoiding action and was partially forced off track and onto the grass. In the opinion of the Stewards this was a “Potentially Dangerous” manoeuvre, and a crash was only avoided by the actions of Piastri.
“The Stewards listened to the radio of Bottas, who was the car that exited the pits
immediately ahead of Sainz, and Bottas was given ample warning of Piastri
approaching on the track. By comparison Sainz was warned not to cross the white
line at the exit of the pits, and was not warned about Piastri until he was already
alongside.
“Sainz explained that he had briefly caught sight of Piastri as as he he was rounding turn 1 at the pit exit and gauged that Piastri was on a slow lap. From then on he did not see Piastri because of the relative angle of the cars. He also explained that he was trying to get to the drying line as quickly as possible.
“While the Stewards understand this explanation, in their opinion, Sainz rapid move to the line, while unable to see a car that he knew was in the area created a “Potentially Dangerous” situation.
“The Stewards also felt that the team contributed to this situation and therefore issue a team fine.”
While Carlos Sainz managed to escape a grid penalty, AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda was not so lucky. The Japanese driver was handed a 3-place grid penalty for blocking Lewis Hamilton in Q2.
With Hamilton on a crucial lap as he tried to make it out of Q2, he was baulked by Tsunoda through the final couple of turns as the AlphaTauri driver looked for clear space ahead of his final attempt. The seven-time World Champion ultimately missed out on Q3 and starts P13 tomorrow.
Toto Wolff was far from happy after qualifying, stating in his post-qualifying media session: “The impeding is pretty ugly to look at. I don’t know whether it’s become a bit of a pattern because people simply don’t care or because they don t get
penalised.
“The answer is penalise, penalise. If you know you don’t go to prison when you cheat the tax, you cheat the tax. I don’t understand why these things aren’t penalised.”
Stewards explanation
“Tsunoda was on the dry racing line at the exit of Turn 13 preparing for his fast lap and had not fully come up to speed and therefore impeded Hamilton. Tsunoda explained that he had been passed by another car and decided to remain slow in order to regain his gap.
“In the opinion of the Stewards, Tsunoda clearly had the ability to stay off the line and therefore this impeding was unnecessary.”
Photo credit: Red Bull Content Pool
