Days after Mercedes-backed driver voices disgust over F1 politics, Carlos Sainz echoes his frustration

A few days after Mercedes backed Esteban Ocon, who voiced his disgust at the politics involved in the sport, Carlos Sainz has jumped in with his take on how F1 as a sport appears to have too much influence on the off-track side of things. As a sport, Formula 1 continues to be more and more about what a driver brings as an overall package, and it's not just about how good you are on the track.

There are elements beyond it as well. In a recent interview, Esteban Ocon touched on what happened to him in 2019 when the driver had to sit out of F1 for a season despite being one of the more promising drivers on the grid. The French driver touched on how politics played a major role in it, and while at the time he didn't use to engage much in it, he now made it a point to be more involved in these discussions with his management team.

For Carlos Sainz, the situation appears to be somewhat similar, as last season he was dropped by Ferrari for Lewis Hamilton even though the Spaniard's performances had been pretty good. While getting replaced by a 7x F1 champion is not that surprising, what was a bigger surprise for the driver was how he was not picked up by either Red Bull or Mercedes, even though he would have been a great addition to the team.

Talking about the sport in general on the High Performance Podcast, Carlos Sainz touched on how big a role politics plays in the sport. He said,

"I don't think there's any other sport that is as political as F1. You know, football can be political, but nowhere near as Formula 1. Formula 1 - there's, for some reason, a level of politics that I don't understand. It's the one thing of the sport that I hate."

He added,

"What makes sense for a team to have in the two seats might not be the right thing for the team. It makes sense, but it's not the right thing. Or there's other things coming behind the driver. Doesn't matter if it's sponsors, money - that makes one a bit more attractive than the other."

It's not purely based on performance: Carlos Sainz

Talking about how driver and team maneuvers happen in F1, Carlos Sainz said that it wasn't always straightforward and dependent on the performance. The driver felt that the performance was 80% of the factor on where you end up in the sport, with the other 20% coming from outside factors. He said,

"So, it's not purely performance. Performance brings you 80% of the cake. But there's another 20% maybe that it's not only performance and speed. Or let's say, if I am equally as quick as some other driver, that 20% is what makes the difference to be chosen over the other driver. And I feel like this is only happening in Formula 1."

Carlos Sainz is currently racing for Williams and trying to build a project that could potentially end up being a frontrunner. It would be interesting to see how he fares, as this is the team where he could potentially become a team leader in due time.

Edited by Charanjot Singh Kohli