F1 responded to Carlos Sainz’s comment made on excessive showing of family members, friends and partners of the drivers instead of race action.
The F1 Singapore GP had a bit more showing of the driver’s partners than usual and this did not sit well with Williams’ Sainz, whose partner Rebecca Donaldson was shown multiple times on the world feed by FOM. Several others were featured which skipped certain big moments from the grand prix.
In fact, the passes made by Sainz to come through to 10th wasn’t broadcasted, neither did they covered the late trouble for Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso’s chase of him. Additionally, they missed a near pitlane mishap involving Sauber and Yuki Tsunoda.
Speaking to Spain’s Cadena COPE’s radio, Sainz questioned FOM’s direction of the races, where off-track moments are shown more instead of the race action. “It’s becoming a bit of a trend,” he said on the radio chat. “It must have worked for them at one time, that people found it interesting to see our girlfriends, to see famous people on TV, their reactions and so on.
“I understand that if there is an overtaking manoeuvre, a very tense moment in the race, then showing a shot of their reaction is understandable. If the production team sees that it has worked in the past, then they will do it. But as long as you respect the competition and always focus on the important moments of the race, in Singapore they didn’t show any of the four or five overtakes I made at the end of the race, nor did they show Fernando’s pursuit of Lewis, they missed a lot of things.
“So, the other stuff is fine, I get it, but you shouldn’t miss the most important things. For me, they even exaggerate a bit by showing the celebrities and girlfriends,” summed up Sainz, who – as noted above – finished P10 after starting from the back of the field due to double Williams disqualification from qualifying.
F1, meanwhile, shared a generic statement to Motorsport Network. “We always focus on giving our fans the best possible footage of the race and never compromise the key focus – the racing on track,” it said. “Our team does a great job of covering a highly complex situation with multiple cars at different points on a track and also provide great context moments of the grandstands, high profile guests and the locations we race at. We are always in pursuit of excellence and improvement in what we deliver.”
Full radio chat: https://www.cope.es/programas/el-partidazo-de-cope/entrevistas-de-juanma-castano/episodios/carlos-sainz-entrevistas-juanma-castano-20251008_3228087.html
Here’s Carlos Sainz on Passenger Princess show
Here’s Williams pair on Singapore GP
