Sainz alleges deliberate F1 crashes on the rise

Carlos Sainz has astonishingly accused his F1 rivals of deliberately crashing more than is realised after suggestions of cheating were aired against Sergio Perez this week.

The Ferrari driver has alleged that drivers have intentionally caused red and yellow flags more often than is picked up in the media.

The topic has been brought into sharp focus after it was rumoured that Max Verstappen's decision to ignore team orders at Interlagos was spurred by a belief that Perez had intentionally crashed during Q3 in Monaco.

“Without commenting if it was on purpose or not, I think it is real now that all drivers want a rule that if you generate a red flag or a yellow flag, whether it is intentional or not, there should be something done to that driver because you have compromised the other nine on purpose or maybe not," said Sainz.

“But you should get a penalty for it. If not, we are all going to start playing with it.

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"I have seen over the last few years a lot more playing around with it than what you might even have picked out in the media.”

Asked to elaborate, Sainz added: “I’m not going to comment whether it [Perez's crash in Monaco] was on purpose or not.

"I think all 20 drivers, when we analyse these kinds of incidents, we know immediately if the driver has done it on purpose or not because we are not stupid."

Despite hinting at wider spread cheating within the sport, Sainz commented this "is not regular" and refused to publicly be drawn into dishing the dirt on who he believes are the worst offenders.

Asked to point out some instances of deliberately disrupting sessions, Sainz joked: “Without a microphone? I can go for drinks and dinner with you guys and without a microphone I can tell you.”