Carlos Sainz expressed frustration with the FIA after catching the short end of recent decisions, saying the governing body lacks ‘sporting equity’.
The Spaniard went so far as to say he believed bias was at play in the decisions, nodding towards the Bahrain Grand Prix, which took place in Malaysia last weekend.
As the grid left on their formation lap, multiple cars and teams began to suffer issues, leaving them pulled over on the side of the road. A red flag was shown, and the cars made their way back into the pit lane, with half the grid ahead of the Safety Car and half behind.
This chaos left the FIA to decide whether to reinstate the original grid order, or demote those who weren’t behind the Safety Car. Although the regulations meant the mixed-up grid should have taken precedence, the FIA stuck to the original order.
However, this largely stemmed from a software issue that originated with the FIA.
More issues in Singapore
At the Singapore Grand Prix, the grid saw a second software blunder, this time due to “an unfortunate human error”.
During SQ1, Overtake Mode wasn’t activated when the session resumed after a Red Flag, leaving drivers without the extra boost initially. It was turned on, but then just 27 seconds later it was turned off again to preserve sporting fairness.
The brief window benefited some drivers more than others, giving those with access an extra half second. It left Sainz 22nd on the grid, as he didn’t receive the extra 0.5-second boost.
“Unfortunately, we had a really poor lap there,” Sainz said after the session. “We only got one lap, and we had some issues with the brakes in FP1; we had to change them, [and] we were still having some brake issues. Had a few lockups, struggling a lot with that and with the tyres.”
Sainz currently sits as the Director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, and he was quick to point out: “But, on top of that, half of the cars did the lap with half a second quicker engine than the others.
“There was another software issue with the cars. This time around, we were on the bad end of it.”
The Williams driver was visibly frustrated with the session’s decisions, likening it to Malaysia in its approach.
“And for whatever reason, the FIA, like in Malaysia, didn’t decide to do sporting equity, and were happy to do half of the cars in qualifying with a higher power than the other half of the cars,” the four-time Grand Prix winner added.
Sainz believes there are inconsistencies
Sainz strongly opposed the decision to forgo the regulations in Sepang and reinstate the original order, which added to his frustration in Singapore. The Spaniard hinted that the decision came from drivers on the losing side.
“So a bit confused why the sport keeps doing different things depending on who is out in Q1 or who is out in Lap 1.”
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