Sainz Blames 'Unacceptable' Track Issue For Turn One Carnage In Las Vegas

Tuesday, 21 November 2023 at 16:00

Updated at Tuesday, 21 November 2023 at 17:12

Carlos Sainz commented on the issue that destroyed the race for multiple drivers during the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend.

Scuderia Ferrari F1 driver found himself starting in the middle of the field for the race in Las Vegas after getting penalized for changing his engine following the contentious Free Practice One incident.

The Ferrari driver got unfortunate with the incident in FP1 but was hoping for better luck during the race. However, his hopes disappeared right after the start of the race as he started breaking into turn one and locked up.

Similar to multiple other F1 drivers who went into turn one from the inside, Sainz could not stop his car, which resulted in crashing into the back of Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes and damaging his front wing.

A piece of new information surfaced right after the race suggesting there was oil on the inside line into turn one left by one of the cars that served for the drivers' parade ahead of the Grand Prix.

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The Spanish Ferrari driver confirmed the information, saying the combination of cold, dirty track with oil on the surface was a disadvantage for the drivers starting on the left-hand side.

"It is not fair that all the oil was on the inside line. Apart from the dirty track already being there, we put cars on that are leaking oil on tack an hour before the race."

The fact that he had to change his front wing following the incident meant that Sainz dropped down into P17 for the race restart after the safety car and had to fight his way through, which lost him a lot of valuable time in the end. He added:

"Again, this is unacceptable. That probably cost us with the crashes into Turn 1. Yes, I hit the brakes. I had a lot of dust from the oil, and I just had no grip."

The drivers going wide from the inside in turn one include World Champions like Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso, so it seems like there really might have been a problem with the inside line. Sainz explained:

"I think Fernando also spun, [there were] drivers with a lot of experience finding just zero grip."

The Ferrari driver found some positives in his result of finishing in P6 ahead of two Mercedes drivers when he said: "I'm very happy to finish ahead of those who wanted me to be penalized."