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Ferrari has called for race control to speed up its processes after Carlos Sainz took a Safety Car restart out of position during the Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix.
Sainz emerged from the pits under Safety Car conditions on Lap 16 with his nose ahead of Sergio Perez at the Safety Car line.
It was a close call, and Perez, who’d remained on track having stopped a lap prior to the Safety Car’s deployment, elbowed his way through and held the spot.
They remained that way despite replays showing clearly that Sainz should have been ahead of the Red Bull when the race restarted on Lap 21.
Perez did move aside shortly after racing resumed to allow Sainz through, doing so exiting Turn 3.
At the end of that lap, the Ferrari driver trailed Max Verstappen ahead of 2.3 seconds, effectively ending any chance he had of battling with the Dutchman.
“I think this is our number one priority now that we need to talk with FIA because basically Checo [Perez] lost the opportunity to fight with me on the restart and I lost the opportunity to fight with Max for not giving up the position during the Safety Car,” bemoaned Sainz.
“We had a lot of laps to do it. The FIA didn’t allow us.
“I think for the sake of racing and the sake of Formula 1, these kind of things need to happen quicker and they need to happen more efficiently.”
Sainz’s criticism comes after significant attention during the off-season was spent on streamlining race control.
That saw Michael Masi removed from his position, replaced by Eduardo Freitas and Niels Wittich, the latter of whom was in charge in Jeddah.
They’re supported by veteran official Herbie Blash, who worked for many years alongside Charlie Whiting.
On top of that, the FIA has invested in automating a number of systems, along with a virtual race control room in an effort to ease the workload on the race director.
“The communication that we went on the radio with the race director as soon as possible and told him to check on the Safety Car line because we believe that we were ahead a couple of tenths,” explained Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto of the incident.
“It took a bit too long, I believe from them to decide and to give that to the stewards.
“It seems that they took the decision as the Safety Car was coming in, and it was too late to invert [the positions] before the restart.
“So it’s not a blame but I think that in those types of decisions we need to speed up because it was obvious and straightforward.
“I think it would have been done differently,” he added
“And I think it would have been important to do it differently, too.
“It would have been a lot more fair and equitable to swap the positions before the restart, because that was the right position to have and for the battle of our restart as well.”
Sainz went on to maintain third to the flag, finishing the race 8.1s away from the race leader, and 2.7s ahead of Perez.
The Spaniard sits second in the drivers’ championship with a second and a third from the two races to date this season.
F1 heads next to Albert Park for the first Australian Grand Prix since 2019, the event running from April 8-10.
