Carlos Sainz: This major F1 change 'is not talked about enough'

Carlos Sainz believes the safety standards in the pitlane need to be spoken about after he was reprimanded for an unsafe release in Zandvoort. The Spanish driver explained that he landed in Fernando Alonso’s path as he tried to avoid a McLaren mechanic who was in his way.

Speaking to the Motorsport Network, the Spanish driver said:

“It was clearly safe with Fernando but then I had to hit the brakes to not hit a McLaren mechanic that ran into my exit line and it was this braking that generated the unsafe release, if you can call it ‘unsafe’. I was clearly frustrated by it because I thought I had saved someone’s life and not generated a dangerous situation.”

According to the Ferrari driver, avoiding the McLaren mechanic put him in Alonso’s path which he found to be a dangerous situation, but the evasive action was penalized by the FIA. Carlos Sainz feels that safety in the pit lane is not spoken of as often as it should be. The Spanish driver believes safety measures for mechanics and team personnel in the pit lane need to be improved.

Further pushing for more safety measures in the pit lane, the Ferrari driver said:

“Absolutely, I think it’s something that is not talked about enough, that we go to pit lanes during the year that are definitely too tight. And we need to improve safety for the mechanics, because we forget that those people wearing suits and helmets during the pit stops are in the middle of cars going at 80kph, and they are centimetres apart from incidents and from very dangerous situations.”

---

Carlos Sainz believes narrow pit lanes at circuits need to be tweaked

Carlos Sainz believes certain tracks like Zandvoort, Singapore, and Budapest have narrow pit lanes which need tweaking. Fearing a serious incident in the future, the Spanish driver believes there is too much chaos and unsafe conditions, particularly when there are multiple pitstops during a race.

Fearing a serious incident in the future, the Ferrari driver said:

“I feel Zandvoort’s a great track, I want to go back there every year. And I want to keep racing at Zandvoort, Singapore, Budapest, but I’m talking about narrow pit lanes. We need to think about the mechanics and how tight everything is in there, because it’s just too tight. And I think we need to improve the safety. We talk a lot about car safety, circuit safety. But in the pit lane, I’m concerned that one day something would happen if we keep having these narrow pit lanes and so much going on, especially when there’s multiple pit stops going on at the same time.”

Urging the sport to put more measures into place for safety in the pit lane, Carlos Sainz believes the circuits with narrow pit lanes need to be looked at. The Ferrari driver was annoyed in Bahrain when he was penalized for the ‘unsafe’ release and felt he was punished unfairly for saving a life.