Carlos Sainz believes the five-place grid penalty at the Mexico City Grand Prix “exposed weaknesses” in F1 rules.
The Williams driver was demoted five places on the grid after colliding with Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli during last weekend’s American Grand Prix.
Sainz tried to pass Antonelli in an early race battle in Austin on Sunday, but crashed into the side of the 19-year-old Italian’s Mercedes as he darted onto the inside at Turn 15.
The contact sent Antonelli into a spin and forced Sainz to retire with race-ending suspension damage. Antonelli continued on, eventually returning home in 13th place.
Sainz will receive a five-place grid penalty at this weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix.
“What happens on the track stays on the track,” Sainz said at Thursday’s FIA drivers press conference in Mexico City.
“I felt that the fifth penalty awarded to me by the stewards was completely disproportionate to the nature of the incident itself.
“This exposed a weakness in our rules. That is a fact and I have to accept that. I take responsibility for this incident and I wish both of us could have continued racing.”
“But the fact that even after looking at the data and everything onboard that we considered, the fact that they decided to give me fifth place here is hard to understand and hard to accept, but whatever.
“I still have to qualify as high as possible and give myself the best chance to get back into the points. I finally feel like everything is going well and I hope to have a clean weekend.”
Sainz locks up and collides with Antonelli
Antonelli has a ‘different view’ from Sainz
Antonelli, who was seated next to Sainz at the press conference, said he had a “different view” of the incident, although he did not go into details.
“It was disappointing because we were both in decent positions and obviously the contact basically ended both of our races,” he explained.
“I have a different view on this accident. Carlos has his view as well, but it is what it is and we move on.”
Regarding the positives from the weekend in Austin, Antonelli added: “Despite the difficult course, we were able to get up to speed fairly quickly.
“Q3 was a little disappointing because we couldn’t quite put everything together. Lap 1 with DRS, a bump activated the button so DRS didn’t open. There were a few places on the grid in that.”
“The pace seemed OK. The lap in free air after the contact was very good. We didn’t get the result we wanted, but we’ll have another chance this weekend.”