It’s been nearly a week since George Russell won the Austrian Grand Prix at the famed Red Bull Ring, but there’s still significant fallout following his pole-position win in Q3, courtesy of Spanish driver Carlos Sainz, who is proposing a severe penalty for drivers who trigger yellow and red flags during qualifying sessions.
For the uninitiated, the drama unfolded one day before the main event during Q3, when Red Bull’s Max Verstappen crashed at the second-to-last corner on his final lap. The crash prompted a single-waved yellow flag, which Russell, who races for Mercedes-Benz, adhered to by lifting when passing through a single-waved yellow-flag zone, per F1’s rulebook. Despite being forced to lift, Russell’s final lap was more than good enough to earn him pole position.
While Russell followed the rule to the letter, drivers still felt that the crash should have immediately resulted in a double-waved yellow flag, which eventually came some 22 seconds later. But by that point, Russell had already proceeded.
Sainz, however, told reporters that the crash should have triggered a red flag, though he has no issue with how Russell handled it.
“The way George handled it, I think was perfect for what the rule book allows you to do, and he deserved that pole position because he played the rules to perfection,” the Williams driver said, via Racing News 365. “But I don’t think it should ever have been allowed to finish that lap, or to complete a lap in that kind of dangerous situation.”
He added, “At the same time, if Max had been on pole after the finish runs and then produced that crash, and there was a red flag and no one improved their lap, I think it would be unfair on George, Kimi [Antonelli] and everyone else because the guy on pole would effectively be preventing us from improving our lap times.”
Sainz proposes a penalty rule
Sainz says he plans to propose a drastic rule the next time the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association meets.
“I have a very personal idea about this that hasn’t been discussed among the GPDA yet, which I will potentially bring forward as an idea,” said Sainz, who is also the director of the GPDA. “Then we can maybe discuss if it should be the case or not. I think this weekend, because of being a sprint, maybe we don’t have a proper meeting about it. But I think we should.”
Sainz’s proposal, if implemented, would dramatically change the landscape of F1 qualifying as we know it, conjuring up his qualifying session in Monaco earlier this year.
“Take Monaco, for example, or Baku last year, when I was on pole and was the first car out of the pits. I thought, ‘If I crash now, I’m on pole,'” he said. “So, we all have these thoughts and these second thoughts, and we all know how the rule book works.
“For that reason, I think anyone who generates a yellow flag or a red flag in qualifying should receive a three-place grid drop. At least then you get penalized for it and are disincentivized from going flat out into something, which was not the case for Max, because Max was, I think, P3 at the time. He obviously crashed through a failure of the rear wing.”
That being said, Sainz was adamant about a rule change.
“But I think we should find a solution for that, and that’s my only idea — that if you generate a yellow or a red you should get some kind of penalty,” he insisted. “If you push flat out but you push too far, and you’re not letting others improve. You’re earning a position by not letting others do a better job than you. Even if it’s nonintentional.”
The chatter will likely continue this weekend at the British Grand Prix.
