After dropping out in Q1 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz said some drivers deliberately cost others lap time in close qualifying sessions by being within a few seconds through certain corners.
A crash on Friday put Sainz behind heading into qualifying, and he duly was eliminated in 16th place after saying he struggled with traffic on his final Q1 run. The Spaniard says drivers know the distance that would prove tricky for a following car in quick corners and when the field is closely matched, it opens up the potential for some gamesmanship to try and impact others.
“It’s tricky, but there were cars out there today and between us drivers we know that if you do a corner within two seconds of another car — one or two seconds in front — then you’re going to make him lose a tenth or two in that corner,” Sainz said.
“I see people as the weekends have gone by relaxing a bit on that, and when it’s tight in Q1 or Q2 I see people giving some dirty air on purpose in some corners, to maybe make the others lose some time in those corners. Which we don’t consider impeding, but it’s not like (it’s obvious) but you know you’re giving him dirty air and you know you’re giving him a bad run in that corner. So by going out last, I did basically all of Sector 1 and 2 very close to the cars in front and found myself losing tenths in Turns 3 and 4.”