“Fourth place was the best we could do today… We were on the verge of the podium, which seemed very complicated after the pace in the Sprint…”, admitted a realistic Carlos Sainz, who was more confident, when he got out of the Ferrari. who is satisfied with the 12 points of his fourth position in Austin, in the United States GP of F1, with victory for Max Verstappen.
This happened around 3:40 p.m. on Sunday, local Texas time; 10:40 p.m. in Europe.
Two hours after finishing the race (at 5:28 p.m. in Austin), the FIA ??technical delegate, Jo Bauer, inspected – at random – the flat bottoms of four cars. Those of Verstappen and Lando Norris passed the evaluation; but those of Lewis Hamilton (who had been 2nd) and Charles Leclerc (6th) did not comply with the regulations by exceeding the maximum allowable wear of one millimeter on the plank that rubs with the ground (plank)…
A minor detail, but a technical irregularity nonetheless, which implied a severe sanction: disqualification of Leclerc and Hamilton, who were eliminated from the classification.
The immediate consequence was the shift in the race positions: Norris rose from third to second (he gained 3 more points), and Sainz got on the podium (3 points)… although at that time, 7:18 p.m. in Austin (2:18 in Europe), with the circus half-packed and the equipment already scattered, he was left without a celebration in the box with Verstappen and his friend Lando.
Carlos reacted to achieving his 18th podium, his third of the year, on his Instagram account with the message “Sweet and bitter. Happy for third place, but disappointed for Charles and the team.”
Curiously, of those 18 podiums in Sainz’s record, three came as an unexpected gift, after the post-race rearrangement of the stewards. On all three occasions, the Madrid native had placed fourth when crossing the finish line…
The most famous case was his first podium in F-1, in Brazil 2019, when he was racing with McLaren. Minutes after the champagne ceremony, race management penalized Hamilton with 5 seconds for colliding with Albon, so the Englishman dropped to 7th place, and Sainz, who had started last (20th) and had marked a historic comeback, rose to 3rd. His first prize could not have been more atypical and devoid of honours, although the Spaniard was able to celebrate afterwards by standing on the podium with his team, who presented him with the trophy, taking it out of a bag as he walked next to the garages.
History would repeat itself. His fourth podium, in Hungary 2021, surprised him in the same way. A post-race penalty for second place, Sebastian Vettel, for a technical irregularity (he was unable to extract the required liter of gasoline from the tank of his Aston Martin for inspection), meant Sainz’s promotion from 4th to 3rd. They told him at 10 at night when the man from Madrid was already having dinner in a restaurant in Budapest. He celebrated by toasting with beer.
In addition to Carlos Sainz’s podium, the 18th of his career and third of the year, the modification of the classification with the disqualifications of Hamilton and Leclerc implied significant consequences in the World Championship.
The favored ones were Lando Norris and Sainz, who added 3 more points, Checo Pérez (2), and above all Russell (4, from 7th to 5th), Gasly (4, from 8th to 6th) , and Stroll (4, 9th to 7th), while Tsunoda added one point (10th to 9th, Alex Albon two (11th to 9th) and rookie Logan Sargeant He made his debut in F1, in his home grand prix, by entering the top 10 (1).
In the general classification of drivers, there are some very significant effects: Pérez is relieved with Hamilton’s punishment since he goes from having it from 19 points to 39, so the Mexican receives a boost to retain the runner-up position in the World Championship; Carlos Sainz is 3 points closer to Alonso in his efforts to achieve fourth position in the championship (he is now 12 points away); and Lando Norris overtakes Leclerc in sixth position.
In the general standings of the Constructors’ World Championship, McLaren maintains the fight with Aston Martin for fourth position, although Stroll’s jump from 9th to 7th (4 points) allowed the greens to take one point off Woking’s team.
