Sainz's Symbolic Assistance

Image: Formula 1

After Hungary, there was a lot of talk about whether drivers would follow team orders to give up a leading position to their teammate. This comes after the fiasco with McLaren, where they ordered Lando to give the lead back to his teammate, Oscar, after their own strategy calls led to an undercut on Oscar.

Carlos Sainz was one of the drivers who claimed he would give up the position if told to when he was asked in the press conference.

"[But] a team order is a team order, and I think the team always comes first."

Despite the fact there are numerous examples of him not following team orders or actively fighting against them, (Silverstone 2022 comes to mind), he proved that he cannot put his money where his mouth is just a few days later during the Belgian Grand Prix.

Ferrari split the strategy for their drivers considering Charles was starting on pole and Carlos was starting in 7th. This lead to them starting Carlos on the hard tires to try to go long. This did not work out for them and they brought him in for new medium tires. The team bring in Charles again a few laps later and shortly after that Lewis Hamilton pits as well, coming out behind Carlos and ahead of Charles.

Lewis was quickly gaining on Carlos and the team asked Carlos to defend for 1-2 laps to attempt to hold Lewis up. At this point the chances of Carlos getting a podium were slim to none, his race was over, but his teammate was on track to get P2 if not win the race. It was the right call from the team to try to hold up the net race leader.

Carlos refuses to help. He complains on the radio that these tires are terrible and he wants to pit again, now. He complains that racing Lewis and slowing him down would waste too much time for himself and would rather pit again, despite his tires only being 7 laps old.

"What about my race?"

So, Ferrari bring him in again for new tires. Allowing Lewis to drive in the clean air and open up a larger gap to Charles behind. The Ferrari is not the fastest car on the grid by a long shot - in fact they're fourth fastest. Carlos' race was over. He was not on track for a podium result or win, due to their alternate strategy that he was put on from the start of the race. The best result he could've aimed for was a P5 or P6.

Charles could've benefitted greatly from some assistance from his teammate, scoring a good amount of points for the team and getting them back in the fight for P2 in the constructors championship. Instead, Carlos thought only for himself and his own race, despite claiming he always believes the team comes first just days prior.

Carlos ended up finishing the race in 6th place, moving up one position after George's disqualification. Charles was passed by Oscar near the end of the race but managed to defend from Max and Lando behind until the end, securing a P4, which was promoted to a P3.