Carlos Sainz believes that George Russell should have been handed a bigger penalty for causing a collision at the United States GP.
Russell and Sainz collided on the opening lap of the US GP. As a result, the Spaniard retired from the race due to a water leak, while the Briton received a five-second time penalty for causing the collision. Russell revealed that he had apologized to Sainz after the race.
When asked about Russell’s apology, Sainz replied: “Of course, it always honors the guy who does that straight away after the race.
“I always respect that. It doesn’t mean that I am happy. I think that the FIA also maybe was a bit easy on him for the consequences that happened.”
Sainz also recalled the events and denied that he could have done anything in order to avoid the accident.
“I don’t think I could have done something very different. I was in the middle of a battle with Max [Verstappen], Max went long and obviously had to brake a lot at the exit of the corner.
“We were both already getting out of the corner while George I think hadn’t even done the corner and bumped into me, which is a shame.
“It’s the kind of incident that you expect to see more in the midfield, when there’s so many cars around you. But in the top four, I’ve never seen that incident happen that often.
“That’s why I was so frustrated after the race. I obviously accepted George’s apologies because it was good by him. But yeah, it was nothing I could have done.”
He added: “It was one of the toughest moments of the season. Very disappointing because after doing a perfect weekend up until then for your race to be ruined by something out of your control is really tough.
“It’s been also a few times this year, which makes it particularly frustrating to not do races because it’s what we all go to those places to do. But it’s how it goes sometimes in motorsport, or in life, you go through rough patches and other easier ones.
“It seems that this year, everything that could happen to me, it’s happening. I hope I can get them all out of the way this year for next year to have a smooth one.”
