“It just demonstrates what Formula 1 is missing”- Carlos Sainz criticizes F1 amidst George Russell’s mammoth achievement

Tanish Chachra | 06/12/2020
"It just demonstrates what Formula 1 is missing"- Carlos Sainz criticizes F1 amidst George Russell's mammoth achievement

“It just demonstrates what Formula 1 is missing”- Carlos Sainz faults F1 amidst George Russell’s first front-row finish in the qualifying.

George Russell had a great session on Saturday after he finished P2 in the qualifying, his highest grid start ever since he made his debut in F1, and the difference this time was he was driving a Mercedes instead of Williams.

Russell’s result was impressive, as he had little time to get familiar with the car, and yet managed remain close to his teammate Valtteri Bottas who is much experienced and have control over the car.

This made Carlos Sainz criticize F1 for not cropping the gaps between the cars on the grid, as all the drivers on paddock are marginally separated ability wise but the gap widens when a car like Mercedes is superly advanced when compared to others.

“It just demonstrates what Formula 1 is missing out from, by having cars that are two seconds apart when pretty much the whole grid could be within three-tenths of a second because of the talent there is on the grid,” explains Sainz.

“It’s a shame that a guy that is fighting for P15 every weekend, suddenly when you put him in a race-winning car, he’s 20 thousandths off the pole.

“If anything for me, this demonstrates what F1 is missing out from, creating a much more incredible show if you could level the playing field a bit more and allow the driver to make more of a difference.

“At the moment, when you are one second off the pace or two seconds off the pace you cannot really see the last two tenths from a driver that makes a difference.”

A warm moment between Russell and Sainz in Bahrain

Sainz earlier in the qualifying gave space to Russell to allow him to make the most out of his lap, soon, in return, Russell returned the favour and gave him a tow.

Sainz later acknowledged on the team radio and said that they might have a good relationship despite all the rivalry, a warm moment was shared between the two drivers.

Post Edited By: Tanish Chachra
carlos sainz George Russell McLaren Mercedes

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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