FIA created ‘unnecessary mess’ with late F1 call - Sainz

During the early safety car period that was triggered when Nicholas Latifi crashed, Sainz had emerged from the pits very close on the track to Red Bull rival Sergio Perez.

But, despite being ahead at the safety car line that defines who has position in the queue, Sainz lost third place on the road as Perez accelerated out of Turn 2 and forced him wide.

Ferrari spoke to race control about the situation, as Sainz being ahead at the safety car line meant that Perez should have to give the position back.

But despite clear television footage showing that Sainz was indeed ahead, the FIA delayed making a call on the matter and it was not resolved until after the restart.

That meant Sainz never had an opportunity to challenge Max Verstappen, who would have been ahead of him, and then both he and Perez lost ground as they switched places.

Sainz was not happy with the situation as he felt it was very bad for racing.

“In the end, we created a mess that for me is unnecessary, given the fact that we did six laps behind the safety car and there were millions of opportunities for Checo to let me by and have a good fight at the restart,” explained Sainz.

“If I would have get passed by George Russell for example, what would we have done? Would Checo have had to let by Russell and me, which would have been tremendously unfair for him too, or then Checo doesn’t give me back the position because there's Russell in between me and him and it's tremendously unfair for me.

“It's just these kind of things that, as a sport, we need to keep getting better at because I think we need to simplify things and just make it more quicker and easier for everyone to understand, and even for the drivers to go racing with a much clearer mind.”

Sergio Perez,