F1 star wants investigation after admitting team 'manipulated' Monaco GP result
Conditions at the Monaco Grand Prix allowed some teams to use some unsavoury tactics to maximise their results and even the drivers involved weren't pleased to be a part of it
Carlos Sainz wants Formula 1 bosses to find a way to stop racers from driving slowly on purpose to benefit their team. His call came after the Monaco Grand Prix where his Williams outfit was one of the teams which employed that tactic to secure a double points finish.
Sainz was 10th at the end, one place behind Alex Albon. They had worked together to get that result, using the narrow streets of Monte Carlo to their advantage by driving intentionally slowly to give their team-mate the gap they needed to pit without losing positions.
They were not the only ones who did it, with Racing Bulls also doing so to secure a strong result for both Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson. But even though he benefitted, for Sainz, it left a sour taste.
And he has called upon F1 bosses to come up with a way to stop it from happening in the future, unhappy with how his team had to "manipulate" the race in order to have a successful afternoon. He said: "[We were] driving four seconds off the pace at some stages of the race.
"Ultimately, we were victims, first from Lawson that managed to lose 40 seconds to Isack, [it allowed] two pit stops that Isack would do in front of us to finish, to do his two pit stops and finish P6.
"As we were victims of that situation, we had to, in the end, do the same thing as Lawson did both times with Alex and myself to make sure we bought the two cars to the points, something I definitely didn't enjoy doing, something definitely the sport should look into.
"Ultimately, yeah, you're driving two or three seconds off the pace that the car can do. You are ultimately manipulating the race and manipulating the outcome a bit. So we should find a way that this cannot be done in the future.
"Every year, people are going to do it more and more, and it's becoming more of a trend the last few years. So in that sense, the two-stop, if anything, helped to maybe spice up around the pit windows, to have two pit stops, but it made us have to do the slow driving twice, which is not a very good look for the sport."
Team-mate Albon also felt bad about their approach to the race, though he too said the Racing Bulls cars had forced their hand. The British-Thai racer said: "[That was] not how we want to go racing, Carlos and I. I know we put on a bad show for everyone, and that we made a few drivers behind us angry in the process as well.
"It was just taking advantage of the track, the size of the cars, and that's it, really. The two-stop just made us do it twice, rather than once. Apologies to everyone who watched that, it wasn't very good.
"Being honest, we didn't want to do it and we never planned to do it. We knew on Thursday that this was going to be a thing and, when the RBs started it... if they hadn't started it, we would never have done it. But the way they bottled everyone up, we then had to do the same thing for ourselves. Sorry!"
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