Frederic Vasseur says there will be discussions about the Carlos Sainz’s situation form F1 Las Vegas GP, as he is still not happy about it.
Even with the sound results in F1 Las Vegas GP where they closed in on Mercedes to just four points now, Vasseur was left a bit disappointed especially with regards to what happened with Sainz on Friday and how the FIA handled the situation.
While there is the question about the penalty especially since it was the battery which needed replacement and penalised, but Vasseur is disturbed by the financial factor amid cost cap along with previous happenings at other circuits and FIA’s handling.
Vasseur noted about private discussions on the matter and regarding compensation too. The time gap between waving the yellow flag and the red flag is also a question mark where nobody was informed what actually happened in that period.
“No, they didn’t speak at all, we didn’t know the reason for the yellow flag,” said Vasseur. “The main issue for me on this case is that when you put the first yellow flag it means that you saw something, you don’t put the yellow flag by anticipation. It means that the guy who put the yellow flag, and put the yellow flag also on my board, which is coming from the race control, it means that they saw something.
“And then they took one minute before they put the red flag, when it’s the straight line, and you have a metallic part, and you are at 340 kph. I’m a bit more upset with the way of managing it rather than with the incident itself. The incident we have precedents in the past, even in Monaco which is the top of the top of street circuits.
“We had this kind of incident a few years ago, I think on the curb at the exit of Turn 1 – we had the case in Malaysia, we had the case in Baku twice, at the pit entry with Bottas and with Russell. I think this is difficult to anticipate and to fix. Then the way you manage the incident is another story,” summed up Vasseur, who insisted that the penalty was harsh.
“This will be a private discussion that I will have with the stakeholders of this,” said Vasseur. “We’ll have time next week to discuss about this. I think it was not a very fair decision due to the circumstances, it was very harsh for Carlos, very harsh for the team and we will have to discuss about the circumstances of the incident.
“I think it’s too much. It’s not an easy one to give a set of tyres or to give an engine because it’s a gain in performance. But battery, there is no performance in the battery. Considering that we missed FP1, we had a couple of million in damage, the mechanics worked like hell to come back, I think it was not too stupid to consider the case of force majeure. We can’t repair the chassis, even the seat was damaged.
“For sure you have a lot of extra costs. The loom was damaged, the gearbox was damaged, the battery was damaged, the engine is dead. We have a lot of consequences on the financial side, on the sporting side, and even on the stock of spare parts, and on the budget side for sure it’s not an easy one. There is no provision into the budget or cost cap, for excluding the crashes. There will be discussion. The decision, it’s another thing,” summed up Vasseur.
Sainz, himself, wasn’t happy even on Sunday where he managed to recover to sixth despite the spin at the start of the race. Seeing how Charles Leclerc managed to fight Red Bull, the Spaniard reckoned it was a missed chance as they could have pushed for the win.
Also, had Sainz been up front, Ferrari had a good chance to leapfrog Mercedes in the standings. “You saw what happened up front and the pace Charles had,” he said. “With two Ferraris up there. I think we would have had a very good, fun race for the podium or for the win. So we missed out a bit on that. Although it was a good day for a team in terms of the constructors, it should have been even better.”
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