Sainz unhappy at stewarding after grid penalty

Carlos Sainz feels the stewards are not following the attitude the FIA claimed it would take to collisions after being handed a grid penalty for hitting Lance Stroll in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Exiting the pit lane early in the race, Sainz attempted to dive up the inside of Stroll into Turn 1, but ran into the side of the Williams. The contact took both drivers out of the race and resulted in the Safety Car being deployed, with an investigation after the checkered flag leading to Sainz getting a three-place grid penalty for the Russian Grand Prix.

With the FIA saying at the start of the year that it would try and treat more collisions as racing incidents to encourage racing between drivers, Sainz says he was not expecting to be penalized.

"I obviously was quite surprised at the three-place grid drop – I thought they were going to consider it a racing incident," Sainz said. "Obviously when you are fighting for position and the points, there are a lot of aggressive battles going on. For me it was a racing incident – Lance simply didn't see me and maybe a guy with a bit more experience would have seen me and would have left me enough space in the corner.

"I didn't lock up, didn't miss the apex, didn't do nothing, just went for a gap that was there and simply there wasn't enough space in the end.

"You can ask [the stewards] why they say this. There have been quite a lot of battles going around that have happened, and I get the first penalty with the first incident that has happened in the whole year.

"You get the penalty, you can go home and keep talking but you're going to get it. You can't appeal, you can't do anything, so that's how it is.

"First incident, fighting for position and first penalty..."

Sainz (pictured) reiterated his belief that Stroll's lack of experience – in just his third F1 race – played a role in the collision.

"I think he saw me coming out of the pits perfectly. He was obviously not expecting me to be there; he didn't look in his mirrors while turning and we encountered each other. That's why I said probably against a guy with a bit more experience he would have just left one car space, open the radius of the corner, he would still emerge ahead of me in the corner and nothing would have happened. But I got a three-place grid penalty.

"I honestly feel quite confident and quite sure about everything. I know that in the midfield these days you need to be pretty aggressive to gain any position, especially in pit stops and around the pit stop window, because nowadays it's the only place to overtake. This time it didn't work, next time he knows I'm going to go for it also and he might give me a bit more space."