Carlos Sainz reprimand: FIA explains sanctions and hits out at Ferrari. FIA explains sanctions.

The various episodes that characterized Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo, from Ferrari’s strategic errors to the failure to sanction the two Red Bull cars for touching the pit lane white line, overshadowed a small ‘case’ which had exploded on Saturday morning, during the third free practice session, and that  involved the F1-75 car of Carlos Sainz.

In fact, the Spaniard was given a reprimand, the second linked to driving reasons in the 2022 Formula 1 season, for hindering the Aston Martin of Canadian Lance Stroll on track. At the same time, Ferrari also received a 25,000 Euro fine for not communicating correctly with its driver and not providing him with enough information to be able to avoid the incident.

Going into the details of the reasons given by the stewards to justify the lack of penalties for Red Bull, however, one can see a fairly harsh approach against the Maranello team. In fact, if Carlos Sainz was inevitably punished, given that it was him who committed the obstruction, the document released by the Federation heavily criticizes Ferrari’s actions in this circumstance. “As the driver approached corners 17 and 18 – the explanations read – the driver of car 55 received a series of seriously incorrect messages via radio about the gaps from the cars behind. For the Stewards, it is not clear why such misleading information was given to the driver, who had the impression that there was no car immediately behind him. Due to the poor rear visibility in that part of the circuit, the driver relied completely on the messages of the team “.

The team headed by Mattia Binotto is therefore charged with a “serious” responsibility for the incident. It is no coincidence that the obstructions of other drivers, Perez and Zhou, were evaluated differently from that of Carlos Sainz precisely because of the type of information provided by the pit walls to the drivers in question. In the latter two cases the “lack of information” is cited. In the Carlos Sainz incident, however, the fact of having provided “incorrect information” is contested. The theme takes on a certain significance, thinking also of the confusion made by Ferrari in managing strategies on Sunday, in the race. This precedent leads us to think that already at the beginning of the weekend in Ferrari there were some serious limits in communication. A problem that then continued over the weekend leading to the now known results in the Monaco Grand Prix on the streets of Monte Carlo.