The FIA confessed it hadn’t realised Carlos Sainz had served a time penalty during the Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix before it quickly rescinded a grid drop for the upcoming race in Jeddah.
Sainz was handed a 10-second time penalty for forcing Mercedes Andrea Kimi Antonelli wide at Turn 10 shortly after the Safety Car restart on Sunday.
The Spaniard was already walking wounded at this point, suffering with a hole in his sidepod triggered by contact with Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda, the very incident that scattered debris and triggered the Safety Car intervention.
As Sainz’s problems worsened due to the damage, he pitted, served his time penalty and then returned to the box for good, telling select media, including Motorsport Week, “we did that on purpose to retire.”
The FIA, however, briefly, to the tune of 10 minutes, handed Sainz a 10-place grid drop for the Saudi GP, failing to notice he’d successfully carried out his punishment at the Bahrain International Circuit.
A notice should have made race control aware on its system that Sainz had served his in-race penalty, but alas, this failed, with The Race reporting the FIA hadn’t realised the system had malfunctioned.
Once the error had been spotted, Sainz’s grid penalty for Jeddah was rescinded.
Speaking of the penalty, Sainz knew at the point he ran Antonelli wide, he “was going to retire” thanks to his damage, describing the move as, “heat of the moment, we were fighting for positions after the safety car restart with a cold hard [tyre] and no downforce on the car.”
Tsunoda clash ‘cost’ Sainz his race in Bahrain
Sainz’s clash with Tsunoda prompted him mid-race to probe whether it was worth investigating the Red Bull driver, but both parties later admitted it was a racing incident.
“At that moment I had wheelspin and I can’t avoid it,” Tsunoda said of the Turn 1 clash.
“My perspective, it’s a proper racing incident.”
Sainz added, “He did lose the car fighting with me and that cost me the race.
“At the same time, when I look at the onboard it’s kind of a racing incident. It just cost me my race.
“A bit of a lack of control from him in that situation.
“But at the same time, if I was Yuki and you lose the car a bit in the middle of a fight, you would understand why you don’t want a penalty.
“So a bit of a tough one to call but this time it cost me, I got caught the wrong side of a coin and it is what it is.”
The Spaniard said the move cost him “40-50 points of load and that makes you a second and a half slower and you just go backwards from then on.”
Sainz and Tsunoda were both fighting fro fringe points, the latter chasing his first score with Red Bull and the former his first with Williams on merit, after disqualifications saw him inherit 10th in China.
It was Sainz’s strongest weekend with Williams yet, having qualified in the top-10, and he unfortunately came away with nothing.
Sainz took positives from qualifying eighth and a strong start that saw him in the mix with Pierre Gasly’s Alpine, Antonelli and his Ferrari replacement, Lewis Hamilton, but admitted those runners are in “another league” than Williams.
“The Alpine was too quick for us this weekend and when you have the top eigh cars plus the Alpines, that’s top 10 positions, and I was there between P11 and P10 fighting for my life,” Sainz said.
“We were just not quite quick enough, but again first two stints a lot to learn from again.
“We’re in the right trajectory the weekends will come a bit more together hopefully and at the same time we have this little bit to improve on the car to see if we can catch Gasly and Doohan with the Alpine because they seem to be in another league than in our league.”
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