Mercedes chief Toto Wolff admits F1 rival faced an ‘awful’ situation in 2023

Follow us on Google Discover

Mercedes team principal and CEO Toto Wolff believes the grid penalty Carlos Sainz received at the Las Vegas GP was ‘absolutely unfair’ and ‘awful’ for the Ferrari star.

The 29-year-old had to accept a 10-place grid penalty as Formula 1 returned to Sin City last November. Ferrari were helpless to prevent the penalty after a water valve cover destroyed Sainz’s car. It made the Scuderia replace the Spaniard’s battery, ICE and control electronics.

Sainz was already at the limit of batteries allowed through the 2023 season when the water valve cover broke free and damaged his SF-23. But there are no force majeure clauses in the FIA’s rules that would have let the stewards avoid giving Sainz a penalty at the Las Vegas GP.

Carlos Sainz is ‘still angry’ about his grid penalty at the Las Vegas GP

The water valve cover broke free and hit Sainz’s Ferrari inside the first eight minutes of FP1 in Nevada. It would also see the stewards abandon the rest of the first practice session so they could check the rest of the track. But the damage effectively ruined Sainz’s entire weekend.

His 10-place grid penalty denied Sainz a P2 start having qualified just 0.044 seconds slower than his pole-sitting teammate, Charles Leclerc. The Madrid native also damaged his hopes of recovering from the penalty by spinning on Lap 1 and hitting Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.

Sainz understeered into the Mercedes driver at Turn 1 but Ferrari’s strategy would help him finish in sixth. Yet Scuderia team principal Frederic Vasseur branded it ‘unacceptable’ that a water valve cover destroyed their car. While Sainz admitted he was ‘still angry’ in December.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes it was ‘awful’ for the Ferrari driver

McLaren CEO Zak Brown also stated that it was ‘unfair’ for Sainz to get a grid penalty for an incident out of the Ferrari driver’s control. Now, Mercedes boss Wolff has also called Sainz’s grid penalty at the Las Vegas GP ‘absolutely unfair’ and has urged the FIA to tweak its rules.

Wolff believes it would have been ‘awful’ for Sainz after putting himself in the Ferrari pilot’s shoes. So, it is only right that the FIA now looks at its rules and considers if Formula 1 needs a force majeure clause that allows the stewards to void certain penalties on key conditions.

“What happened to Carlos was absolutely unfair,” Wolff told Planet F1. “I’m talking about the penalty. Unfair. For me, as a racer, I am the first one to say that he didn’t deserve the outcome. I think we should look at the rules [but] force majeure is a difficult one.”

Wolff added: “Nobody liked the situation, as a sportsman. It was unjust what happened to him and ruined the race weekend for him that he maybe could have won. So, we’ve got to look and give it a hard think [about] how we can change it.”