Carlos Sainz believes that some drivers are deliberately using dirty air to compromise their rivals.

The Spaniard was speaking as a miserable Abu Dhabi weekend appeared to go from bad to worse.

On Friday he crashed in FP2 causing extensive damage to his Ferrari, while poor strategic timing meant he failed to make it out of Q2 for the third time this season.

Other than feeling that he was sent out too late for his final run, and therefore encountered traffic, Sainz believes that rivals are using dirty tricks - or rather dirty air - to thwart their rivals.

"I had so much traffic," he replied when told he had failed to make the cut. "I think people, the Mercedes did it on purpose, did it turn five ahead of me, then the Alpine turn two-three.

"We just simply went out too late in the last run, we and found ourselves in the middle of a mess with the traffic and everything," he subsequently told reporters.

"We had a problem with the front wing and for some reason we went out the last ones when we were clearly under pressure and then we found a lot of cars and traffic in Sector 1 and 2. We needed a clean lap, we needed a clean Q1, we didn't get it so we're out."

However, other than being sent out too late, he subsequently raised the issue of impeding, and not necessarily by driving slowly or erratically.

"As drivers, we know that if you do a corner two seconds in front of another car, one second or two seconds in front, you're going to make him lose a tenth or two in that corner," he said.

"As the weekends have gone on, I see people relaxing a bit on that," he continued. "When it's tight in Q1 and Q2 I see people giving a bit of dirty air on purpose in some corners, to maybe make the others lose some time in corners.

"We don't consider it to be impeding because it's not like you need to lift," he explained. "But you know you're giving him dirty air and you're giving him a bad run in that corner.

"By going out last I made basically all sectors one and two very close to the cars in front, and I found myself losing tenths and tenths per corner.

"I think everyone's doing it, it's just that if you put yourself in a bad track position, you're going to suffer from that more. It's tricky.

"It's been a very tough weekend for us," he admitted, "not only because of the crash but overall pace hasn't been great. The car doesn't feel bad, it's just the stopwatch is not looking very good."

His poor qualifying means that teammate Charles Leclerc will have to take on the Mercedes pair single-handed - certainly in the early stages of the race - in the all-important battle for runner-up in the team standings. Heading into the race the German team has a 4 point advantage.

"We are going to try to recover, I think we have the potential for sure to recover and do better," he concluded.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by kenji, 27/11/2023 1:49

"Carlos has had a bad year and he will be looking for reasons, any reasons, to have a crack. What he's talking about is, if true, competitive driving one way or another. Just get your head down Carlos and do better next year."

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2. Posted by Burton, 26/11/2023 10:55

"Carlos is routinely one of the worst impeding offenders, no sympathy from me here."

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3. Posted by Max Noble, 26/11/2023 10:05

"No sheet Sherlock… Sigh…"

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Drivers using dirty air to deliberately impede one another, says Sainz

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