“I had saved someone’s life,” Carlos Sainz labels the Dutch GP penalty as a ‘joke’
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Carlos Sainz
Carlos Sainz had a Dutch GP to forget as it just went from bad to worse for him. The Spaniard started from P3 on the grid one of the best qualifying sessions of 2022. The top 3 of Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were separated by less than one tenth of a second. It was a disappointment for the two Ferraris but it was utter delight for the Orange Army to see their hero clinch pole in his home race.
The circuit at Zandvoort was expected to help out Ferrari because of high downforce specifications as it would have neutralized the immense engine power of Red Bull on the straights. But, that wasn’t the case as Ferrari made a couple of blunders to put an end to any hopes of Carlos winning the race. The first one happened pretty early into the race as Ferrari weren’t ready with the tyres forcing Carlos to wait in the pits much more than usual.
The Spaniard slowly clawed his way back into the race and was later on helped by the Safety car. But, the last pit stop also didn’t go to plan as Carlos was given a 5 second penalty for an unsafe release in the pits. This was a big blow for Ferrari. Carlos Sainz, who crossed the checkered flag ahead of Sergio Perez at P5, slipped down the table to finish P8 courtesy of that penalty.
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Carlos Sainz opines on the 5 seconds time penalty awarded to him at the Dutch GP
Carlos Sainz was definitely not happy with the penalty handed to him. In his post race interview, the Spaniard said, “We ran into all sorts of trouble in the race and we need to analyse why because it cost us a lot of points.”
“I saw it in the car, by the time they released me it was clearly safe with Fernando but then I had to hit the brakes to not hit a McLaren mechanic who ran in my exit line.“
“It was this braking that generated the unsafe release – if you can call it unsafe because I was clearly frustrated by it. I thought I had saved someone’s life and not generated a dangerous situation.”
The debate around this incident can go on and on but the fact of that matter is Ferrari weren’t good enough to compete with highly efficient Red Bull. Whether it was race pace or pit stops, Red Bull had Ferrari’s number and that is definitely more worrying.
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Shubham Bajpai
(776 Articles Published)