Vasseur Planning A 'Private Discussion' With Stakeholders Over Controversial Sainz Penalty
F1Tuesday, 21 November 2023 at 02:00
Frederic Vasseur elaborated on the consequences of the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix FP1 session incident of his driver, Carlos Sainz.
Scuderia Ferrari F1 driver Carlos Sainz dropped ten places on the starting grid due to a penalty awarded to him after having to replace an engine that was damaged by a loose cover in the FP1.
The incident was the fault of neither the driver nor his team. Loose cover on a circuit is something that should not happen on an F1 circuit in 2023, as Max Verstappen suggested in his recent interview.
However, Ferrari had to fix issues with Sainz's car, valued upwards of $1,000,000, and he even had to start from the 12th place after qualifying in P2.
With budget caps in place for the season 2023, Ferrari could not have counted on having to spend one more million for an incident that was the result of outside circumstances.
Having to spend that additional million not only takes valuable money from the team but also might result in exceeding the budget cap. Asked whether Ferrari will get any compensation for the incident, Vasseur responded to the media:
"This will be a private discussion that I will have with all the stakeholders. I'm a bit more upset with the way they managed it, than with the incident itself"
The team principal described multiple incidents related to the same issue of loose manhole cover that happened on different F1 tracks before:
"We've had an incident in the past where even in Monaco at the top of the circuit two or three years ago, I think on the curb at Turn 1, it was also the case in Malaysia. You had the case two times in Baku with [Valtteri] Bottas [in 2016] and [George] Russell [in 2019]."
Ferrari closed the gap to Mercedes in the Constructors' Championship down to four points ahead of the last Grand Prix of the season in Abu Dhabi. On the other hand, the team could have been ahead of Mercedes if it wasn't for the 10-position grid penalty. Vasseur added:
"This is difficult to anticipate and to fix, but the way you manage the incident is important."
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