Carlos Sainz criticizes the FIA: “I don’t know why they do different things depending on who is out in the first lap or in Q1. They didn’t care that half of the cars had more power”
Carlos Sainz was visibly angry after what happened in the sprint classification this Friday in the F1 Singapore GP. With brake problems and with a car that he knew was going to suffer on the street circuit of Marina Bayit was clear that it would not have happened to the SQ2 of the short classification, but complained about the fact that he had not been able to compete fairly in that SQ1 when affected by another software problem in the FIA.
We must remember that just a week ago, in the Bahrain GP in Malaysiaa software bug FIA on the formation lap caused the start to be postponed. A week later, a double error occurred in SQ1 this Friday. The timing failed, but in addition, as the FIA recognized, there was “a human error” in race direction.
“This error caused ‘Overtaking Mode’ to be unavailable following the red flag period during SQ1. When it was detected that Overtaking Mode was not activated after the restart, it was activated for a period of 27 seconds before being deactivated again. The FIA recognizes that this unfortunate human error affected the performance of certain cars,” the FIA explained in a statement.
And one of those affected was Carlos Sainz, who complained into the microphone of the official F1 television.
I had a software problem and I lost time in half a lap
“Unfortunately, we had a very poor lap. We were able to do only one lap. We had problems with the brakes in Free Practice 1 and we had to change them, and we continued to have brake problems, I blocked and that cost me a lot. And the tires… And also, half the lap I had a software problem and I was short on time in half a lap,” he expressed.
For whatever reason, the FIA has decided to go down the middle street and they didn’t care.
“And for whatever reason, the FIA has decided to go down the middle lane and they didn’t care that half of the cars had more power than the other half. I don’t know why the sport does different things depending on who is out on the first lap or in Q1,” he added.
““We completed the lap half a second faster per lap than the rest of the weekend, but even so, without brake problems it would have been difficult for us to advance to SQ2.”Carlos finished.
They thought they were going to extend the session
At the end of SQ1, the radio between Carlos and his engineer made it clear that both the team and the driver thought that SQ1 should be extended to correct this error, giving a few more minutes so that the drivers could fight fairly, without that problem.
“I have no power. Something is wrong,” Carlos warned over the radio when he saw that he did not have the extra power of his power unit’s ‘Advance Mode’. “Can I have another try?”Sainz asked. “No, we don’t have fuel,” the group responded.
“You’re 17th. I think we’ve all had a problem. It seems like everyone’s had a problem. Maintain temperatures, we are talking to race management. We don’t know what will happen. We’ve all had the same problem, so maybe they’ll extend the session.”said Sainz, who upon arriving at the pits, waited inside the car in case he had another option to attack. But that possibility did not come.
