Sainz Suggests Drivers Harm Each Other On Purpose Amid Q1 Knockout

Saturday, 25 November 2023 at 20:00

Updated at Saturday, 25 November 2023 at 20:28

Drivers apparently deliberately give each other dirty air in qualifying sessions, according to Carlos Sainz, who got knocked out of Q1 during the 2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Qualification.

Scuderia Ferrari F1 team went into the weekend with one clear goal, and that was to overtake Mercedes in the battle for second place in the Constructors' Championship.

The Italian team tends to have a better qualifying car, and it was kind of expected for Ferrari drivers to out-qualify Mercedes. That's why it was a huge surprise to see Carlos Sainz out of Qualifying in Q1.

The Spanish driver was obviously very disappointed with his result, but he blamed dirty air from the cars in front of him for the slow lap time. As reported by RacingNews365, he told the media:

"Between us drivers, we know. We know that if you do a corner one or two seconds in front, you're going to make them lose a tenth or two in the corner."

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The qualifying sessions are so close nowadays that every single tenth of a second makes a huge difference. A two-tenths faster time would put Sainz in P14. He added:

"I see people as the weekends have gone by when it's tight in Q1 or Q2 giving a bit of dirty air on purpose in some corners, maybe to make the other [driver] lose some time in corners which we don't consider impeding because it's not like you need to lift."

As long as there are no penalties for giving other drivers dirty air, drivers will continue doing it, and Sainz revealed every single driver does it.

"But you know you're giving him dirty air, and you know you're giving him a bad run in that corner. Everybody is doing it. If you put yourself in a bad track position, you're going to suffer more."

On the one hand, it might seem like a cunning thing to do, but there is also a corner every few hundred meters, and with 20 cars on track at the same time, it seems like situations like this are inevitable even if drivers tried to do otherwise.

Do you think giving dirty air to the drivers behind deserves a penalty?