Sainz defends race control in ‘very difficult’ conditions

Toro Rosso F1 ace Carlos Sainz says FIA race director Charlie Whiting and his team should be given credit for their handling of a rain-hit Brazilian Grand Prix, as the conditions were “much harder than what people think”.

With heavens really opening last Sunday in Sao Paulo, the start of the Interlagos race was initially delayed by 10 minutes before it was decided to launch the 71-lap contest behind the Safety Car, a call that was criticised in some quarters.

The race officials also came under fire when they red-flagged the event a second time due to persistent rain, while a number of drivers, including race leader Lewis Hamilton, were reporting better conditions and eager to get back under way. Sainz, however, thinks the right decisions were made, given how tricky the situation was.

“It was much harder than what people think,” the 22-year-old said. “Obviously, now we see a lot of complaints about why don’t we race more, why don’t we keep racing and all that but trust me when there is an accident like Kimi [Raikkonen]’s and you don’t even see and you hear on the radio that he has crashed.

“When you are doing 300kph at the re-start, you can’t see absolutely anything and then you see a red car spinning into the wall, and he is ten meters away from you, this is risky. It was very very difficult.

“It’s not easy for the race director to take a decision because the conditions were not easy at all.”

The poor weather ended up playing into the hands of Sainz and Toro Rosso, as the Spaniard delivered another cracking performance from 15th on the grid to climb all the way to sixth at the flag.

“I’m super happy with a result that we did not expect. The second half of this season has been full of surprises. We did not make any mistakes in the race, and the strategy of staying out on the extreme-weather tyres was the right one.

“We can not complain at all when we were only P15 in the dry in qualifying and 2.5s off the lead car.

“We were ahead of the Red Bulls and Ferraris at some point.

“The rain dance definitely worked, but maybe a bit too much.”

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