Carlos Sainz Jnr says the FIA showed no regard for “sporting equity” after an error left some drivers down on power in qualifying.
The sport’s governing body admitted a “human error” meant drivers were not able to use Overtake Mode when they were allowed to for a period following the red flag in the first phase of qualifying.Sainz was one of the six drivers who were eliminated in SQ1. He set the 15th-fastest time in first practice but ended qualifying 22nd and last.
He said a number of problem affects his lap, one of which was the reduction in power due to Overtake Mode being disabled.
“We did the whole lap with half a second less power than any other lap of the weekend, so that’s never going to help,” said Sainz. “But with all the issues that we had on the brakes and tyres in that quali, we would have always struggled to get through.”
“We only got one lap and we had some issues with the brakes in FP1,” he explained. “We had to change them for [sprint race qualifying] and we were having some brakes issues still. I had a few lock-ups and was struggling a lot with that and with the tyres.
“But on top of that half of the cars did the lap with half a second quicker engine than the others. There was another software issue with the cars at this time around and we on the bad end of it.”
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Overtake Mode is only available at certain times during a race but is supposed to be enabled by default in qualifying. It allows drivers to recharged their batteries by 9MJ per lap instead of 8.5MJ, giving them more power.
The latest technical fault to affect a competitive F1 session comes just five days after the start of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia was delayed for almost an hour due to an FIA software fault. On that occasion several drivers complained that those who stopped on-track were allowed to regain their original starting positions.
“For whatever reason, the FIA, like in Malaysia, didn’t decide to do sporting equity, and were happy to do half of the cars in quali with a higher power than the other half of their cars,” said Sainz. “So I’m a bit confused why the sport keeps doing different things depending on who is out in Q1 or who is in lap one.”
Williams team principal James Vowles said the fault “A very frustrating evening. After the red flag in the first session of Sprint qualifying there was an issue with the way overtake mode was activated which definitely had an impact on our lap times. We are confident this will be fully investigated by the FIA.
Lance Stroll also confirmed he was affected by the same problem. “I didn’t have overtake mode available on my second push lap so missed out on any chances [of] fighting to get through to Q2,” said the Aston Martin driver.
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