Carlos Sainz loses fourth place!

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(Motorsport-Total.com) – Carlos Sainz lost his fourth place in the Formula 1 race in Miami. The Ferrari driver subsequently received a time penalty of five seconds for the collision with Oscar Piastri (McLaren) in the last corner and fell behind Sergio Perez (Red Bull) to fifth position.

Carlos Sainz and Oscar Piastri didn’t quite agree

The inspectors saw Sainz as the main culprit for the collision on lap 39, in which Piastri damaged his front wing. Piastri then had to stop in the pits for repairs and get a new wing. As a result, he initially fell back to last place, from where he worked his way back up to 13th place.

“When attempting to overtake, car 55 (Sainz; editor’s note) braked late, missed the apex and then lost the rear, which ended in a collision,” explain the inspectors. “Although car 81 (Piastri; editor’s note) wanted to counter the overtaking attempt, he gave car 55 enough space.”

In mitigating the punishment, they argued that the collision would probably not have happened without Sainz’s loss of control at the rear and that it would have been hard but good racing. Instead of the usual ten-second penalty and two penalty points, the commissioners halved the penalty to five penalty seconds and one penalty point (for an overview of the penalty points).

Compatriot Fernando Alonso would say that Sainz got the punishment because he is Spanish, but the Ferrari driver doesn’t want to get involved in that. “I don’t comment on nationalities, but only on consistency and inconsistency,” he says and criticizes the commissioners – albeit because of a previously unpunished punishment against Piastri.

Sainz wonders: Why no punishment?

He had previously defended himself in a similar way to Kevin Magnussen in the sprint against Lewis Hamilton. But during the Dane on Saturday had received four penaltiesPiastri, quite surprisingly for Sainz, got off unpunished and did not have to give him the position, as Sainz had repeatedly requested on the radio.

“Then I thought to myself, if we’re going to drive like that, then I have to do it too, and that’s what I did,” he says.

“I realized it was time to be aggressive because everyone was very aggressive today,” says Sainz. And because Ferrari had some problems with speed on the straight on Sunday, he knew that he had to brake on the inside next to the McLaren. “And that’s what I did.”

However, there was contact that cost Piastri a good result. The Australian didn’t want to talk about the incident shortly after the race: “I have to look at it first,” he waves it off. “I mean, we weren’t particularly close to the apex, but I need to see it first.”

And while Piastri had to turn into the pits, Sainz was able to continue driving and initially crossed the finish line in fourth place. But because he didn’t get past the McLaren quickly enough, he couldn’t reach for Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen in front of him again.

“I actually had a good pace at the end and caught up with Max and Charles, but it was too late,” he says angrily. “I had already lost too much time behind Oscar.”

Sainz struggles: One lap away from winning the race

In general, the Miami Grand Prix was a race of missed opportunities for him. Because right from the start he had it Attack by Sergio Perez lost valuable positions and then the safety car came at a bad time for him.

Because Sainz came into the pits one lap before the safety car. “Otherwise we would have won the race,” he is convinced. Because Lando Norris, who was able to benefit and win the Grand Prix, was behind the Spaniard at the time of Sainz’s stop. “It’s just a question of luck,” he says.

Nevertheless, Sainz is happy for his former teammate, who celebrated his first Formula 1 victory in Miami: “Lando has deserved victory for many years now because he drives at an excellent level,” he praises. “And of course I’m happy for him that he finally made it.”

“I’m frustrated because we were ahead of him before the pit stop and if we had just stayed out one lap longer we could have won the race,” he says.

Lando Norris deserves success

“But luck comes to those who deserve it. And Lando is one of those who deserved that little bit of luck this weekend to win his first race,” said the Spaniard.

With this, Norris broke a Formula 1 record: the Brit had previously been on the podium 15 times without winning a race. “We have the problem in Formula 1 that there are weekends where you do everything perfectly and are the strongest driver, but still only finish fifth, fourth, third or second,” says Sainz.

“And then you don’t make the headlines because you didn’t win.” According to Sainz, Norris has now driven many races in a row like a winner, “and he simply deserves this victory.”

“Luck or no luck, it doesn’t matter. He’s a race winner. And it’s about time it happened for him. And people have to accept that sometimes you need a little luck if you don’t have the best car.”