Carlos Sainz escapes without penalty for alleged pit lane slowing

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Sainz escapes without penalty for alleged pit lane slowing

Sainz retains his sixth position scored in the season finale

Sam Hall

Sunday 13 December 2020 18:12 Updated: 18:19

Carlos Sainz has escaped a penalty for allegedly slowing in the pit lane and blocking Racing Point driver Lance Stroll in the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

McLaren, Racing Point and Renault have been embroiled in a fierce battle for third in the constructors' standings throughout the year and tensions boiled over as Racing Point reported Sainz for allegedly, and illegally, slowing in the pit lane to gain an advantage.

The incident was not reviewed until after the race as the FIA said "the necessary telemetry was only available shortly before the finish" but after the evidence was examined Sainz was cleared of wrongdoing.

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The stewards' report explained: "The Stewards viewed video evidence, radio transmissions and telemetry data, heard from the driver of car 55 (Carlos Sainz), the driver of car 18 (Lance Stroll) and team representatives.

"Car 55 was advised by its team, that it was 2.4 seconds in front of Car 18 approaching the pit entry. There was no instruction by the team to slow down. On approaching the start of the pit lane Car 55 accelerated then as per normal practice, braked briefly to less than 80 km/h just prior to the line and then accelerated up to 80.

"This was exactly the same as Car 5. (Car 18 also braked to below 80 prior to the line then accelerated up to 80 as it crossed the line).

"Within the pit lane, Car 55 was at 80 km/h for all but approximately 5 seconds when it dropped to no less than 70 km/h. We estimate this resulted in Car 55 arriving at the pit stop around 0.6 seconds later than if it had maintained a speed of 80 km/h.

"Therefore, we are not of the view that this action in any way resulted in the team avoiding a “double stack” situation as Car 5 was well clear of the pit stop at this time.

"We also accept the explanation of the driver of Car 55 that he was exercising a degree of caution as video evidence confirms the presence of a lot of other teams’ personnel in the pit lane at the time.

"Car 18 was able to maintain a speed of 80 km/h in the pit lane except for a very short period of time (approximately 1 second) and therefore we do not consider that it was materially impacted by the actions of the driver of Car 55.

"We also checked the relative speeds of the cars after leaving their pit stops and can see no evidence of Car 55 driving unnecessarily slowly."

On the decision, McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl said: "I expected this."

He added: "In terms of [my] heart rate, it didn’t change my heart rate a lot. You need to figure in potential penalties, but we had all the time to Daniel.

"It was never really something that worried us and from our point of view also we feel it doesn’t deserve any penalty.”

The decision confirmed McLaren's third place in the constructors' championship, with the team finishing seven points clear of Racing Point, and with it earning an additional £4million in prize money.

It is the first time since 2012 the team has finished as high in the standings.