Carlos Sainz explains what he meant by the comments made about direction in F1 Singapore GP, as he gives his spin on sprint weekends.
Post the Singapore GP, Williams’ Sainz caused a bit of stir on social media after his comments made on Spanish radio about the direction of Formula One Management of the grand prix, where the world feed was more focused on off-track moments rather than on the track.
He stressed on his own comeback to P10, while also adding on the battle between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. He thought the FOM showcased the girlfriends of the F1 drivers more than such battles. He received general backing from the viewers of the sport on social media.
A lot of the fans agreed with his stance, but FOM defended itself stating that they do utmost to balance between the two things and the focus is always the race scenario. When asked about his comments, Sainz clarified few things and explained why he said what he said where he was not looking for answers.
He felt the situation was blown out of proportion on social media. He stuck with the comment of bad direction in Singapore, but he connected that with one-off situation, the same way the F1 drivers have off-weekends from among the 20 plus races in a calendar year.
“But I didn’t need an answer [from FOM],” said Sainz to media. “Like always, I think my comments were a bit blown out of proportion. I think the fact that I mentioned the girlfriends or the WAGs, however you call them, it brought a bit of spice to the comment and went a bit more viral worldwide than maybe what it should have been. Just a simple critique, I think it’s clear that in Singapore, the broadcast didn’t do a good job.
“I mean, there are other races where they do an incredible job and they show us incredible things and incredible track action. For me, Singapore was not good. But the same thing, I have good weekends in my life where I perform at a very high level, and other weekends I don’t do a good job, and you guys analyse it, you give me a rating. I did a four out of 10, and by the time you tell me I did a 10 out of 10. And obviously, everyone’s in their own right to say it.
“For me, Singapore was just not good enough and they missed way too much track action. But that doesn’t mean it’s a critique of them or the way they do their job, it’s just Singapore as one race was… it’s a shame that at a track where it’s so difficult to overtake, we missed so many on-track battles. I think at the time I mentioned girlfriends, looking back at it, they were not being shown too much, and it was more that they were very focused on Lando and Max, like there was going to be an accident or there was going to be an overtake.
“When you look at it, there was never going to be action. But I hope they didn’t take it personally or too hard because it was just a simple critique of Singapore, was not good enough maybe,” summed up Sainz. Adding further on his opinion of the sport, the Spaniard had some ideas on how F1 can handle sprint weekends and make it different to the main event on Sunday.
He feels the current scene makes the sprint event a trailer to how the main race will be, which doesn’t feels right. “You have to think about it, you have to be ready already that it is qualifying tomorrow and that changes a bit of approach on maybe what you do today, what you eat, how you plan tomorrow in general,” continued Sainz. “But I don’t mind it.
“I think it is a good track to do a sprint race in Austin. Last year, on Saturday we had the sprint race and it was the most fun sprint I had ever done. I think I had battles with Lando, Charles, Russell non-stop and I think the sprint should be that. It allows for battle and it allows for overtaking and this is a good pick for me. For me, it’s more the format change that I think is required for the sprint, and I think Stefano is open to do that.
“For me right now, the sprint, I’m not a big fan because it unveils what the first stint of Sunday is going to be like, because qualifying is the same format almost, and Sunday is almost the first stint of maybe a bit lighter car, but still the same set of tyres. So yeah, I would rather have different ideas around the sprint so it doesn’t reveal so much the race pace and the results of something,” summed up Sainz.
When asked to share his idea, one of the big changes that he would want to see is to mandate soft tyre for the sprint races, so that it doesn’t give all away about the main race, where medium is usually the start tyre. He also wants to see change on the qualifying side of sprint race, by taking the super pole route in SQ3 instead of traditional Top 10 setup.
“One simple idea could be to make sure everyone does the sprint race on soft tyres, which is a high-deg tyre,” said Sainz. “Normally, there are very little tracks we choose the soft tyre for the first stint of the race. That could be a very easy short-term solution, also because we are throwing five sets of tyres in the bin – soft tyres – always every week, and then we put one lap on them in quali and then we give them back and they go, I don’t know where stores them, but definitely for us it’s only a one-lap tyre at many tracks.
“So that could be an easy fix, not enough probably. I think it requires something else, something maybe a bit more spicy, which I think when it comes to getting the sprint race a bit more spicy, it should be a good opportunity to maybe experiment with different formats and be open-minded. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, change it again like we did in the past. Maybe, I’m not a big fan of reverse grids, but I wouldn’t be completely opposed to trying something different in this case.
“I also think sprint quali could be different, maybe with a bit of a super pole in SQ3. Just keep adding something different to the weekend, keep trying different things maybe. And as I said, not be too critical about it. If it works, great, and it’s better for the format. If it doesn’t, don’t be scared to say that it didn’t, acknowledge it didn’t work, and try something different,” summed up Sainz.
Here’s Williams livery for US GP
Here’s Williams pair on quali issue
Here’s Carlos Sainz making the comments
