Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsToro Rosso

Verstappen fight is with team, not me - Sainz

Carlos Sainz says Max Verstappen's comments after the Australian Grand Prix were "unnecessary" and should have been kept between himself and Toro Rosso.

Verstappen was annoyed to be stuck behind Sainz for the second part of the race having lost out to his team-mate during the final round of pit stops. The Dutchman criticised Toro Rosso for poor strategy and was vocal on team radio during the race, but Sainz says it didn't have an impact on his own race as he was unaware of the ongoing situation.

“You need to understand that I don’t hear Max’s radio communications so I don’t really know what’s going on behind me," Sainz said. "What I know is that when the team told me to let him past that I knew for sure he was saying something.

"You realise: ‘OK, the team is asking me to let him past, there must be something wrong going on back there’. Especially when I know that I’m on the same strategy and I don’t need to let anyone past when I’m on the same strategy.

"So I knew that something probably was going on, that some tension was in the air because I could sense it. But after the race obviously I just preferred not to comment on it and not to enter in to any polemics because I think it was unnecessary.”

And Sainz says the situation between the two team-mates did not need clarifying after Australia.

“The problem is me with Max in the end, what did I do wrong with him? I have nothing really to clarify with him, it’s more him with the team to see what the hell happened to them or to his strategy or to his pit stop. For me with Max, he hit me from behind - luckily for both nothing happened because then I think it would have been a bit different - but what did I do to him or what did he do to me?

“It’s not ideal to have someone saying ‘Oh I’m much faster, let me by’ because it’s not true. In the end I can’t complain to him and he can’t complain to me because it was more him with the team having a problem than him with me, I think.”

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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.