Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsToro Rosso

Sainz wants to fight Verstappen without team orders

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Carlos Sainz has called on Toro Rosso to allow him and team-mate Max Verstappen to fight on track more often without team orders.

The two Toro Rosso rookies were often subjected to requests from the team during 2015, with Verstappen memorably declining to move over for Sainz in Singapore. Sainz says the two drivers get on well enough to be trusted to race each other cleanly and hopes the team will allow them to do so in future.

"At Toro Rosso it is common to receive the radio message [let him past] when the other car is getting close," Sainz told Auto Motor und Sport. "I think it would be fun if we could fight more against each other. We have a mutual respect for each other and we would certainly offer a good show as our pace was very similar ... That would have been exciting."

And Sainz says Verstappen's refusal to move over in Singapore did not damage their relationship, with the pair still on good terms despite often being closely matched on track.

"We provide a close fight. We are always very close together. The whole year was like this. One might think that our relationship deteriorated after Singapore, but that is not so. We then talked about it and cleared everything up. After that the relationship was again as it was early in the season. I hope it stays that way next year too."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.