Carlos Sainz will serve a five-place grid penalty this weekend at the Mexico City Grand Prix after the FIA stewards took a dim view of a crash with Kimi Antonelli in Austin. The Williams racer was taken out of the race as a result of the contact and was hit with a brutal punishment following an investigation.
Sainz had plenty to celebrate on Saturday at the Circuit of the Americas as he capitalised on a crash between four cars ahead of him to score an unlikely third-placed finish behind Max Verstappen and George Russell.
However, on Sunday, things took a turn for the worse. During a battle with Mercedes rookie Antonelli, he tagged the teenager into a spin, suffering terminal damage in the process. The Italian was able to continue, but could only finish 13th.
“The driver of Car 55 maintained that he had expected the driver of Car 12 to leave him space at the apex but Car 12 turned in early and Car 55 locked brakes when it became clear that a collision was unavoidable,” the stewards explained in their report.
“He suggested that the Driver of Car 12 ought to have anticipated an overtake attempt by Car 55 and left space to avoid contact. However, at no point prior to the apex was the front axle of Car 55 alongside or ahead of the mirror of Car 12. Therefore, according to the Driving Standards Guidelines, Car 55 had not earned a right to be left space at the apex.
“The Stewards therefore determine that the Driver of Car 55 was predominantly to blame for the collision and a penalty is applied accordingly. As the driver to be penalized did not finish the race a grid penalty equalling a 10 seconds time penalty is imposed.”
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Speaking in Mexico City on Thursday, Sainz slammed what he felt was a “disproportionate” response from the stewards. He said: “The decision that the stewards made of giving me a five-place grid penalty for here, after what happened there, I found it completely disproportionate to what the incident itself was.
“It exposes a bit the rules… weaknesses in the rules that we have. But it’s what it is, I have to take it. I obviously assume my responsibility, for my share of responsibility for the incident.
“I wish we would have both continued the race, but I think it’s mostly… after looking at the data and all the onboards that we looked at, the fact that they still decided to give me five places for here is difficult to understand, difficult to accept, but whatever.”