Carlos Sainz not a fan of VSC

Carlos Sainz has spoken of his dislike of Virtual Safety Cars, insisting they only help the driver in the lead of the race.

Virtual Safety Cars, where all drivers must keep to a set lap time but no actual safety car is deployed, were introduced as a way of safely dealing with incidents, without affecting the race greatly.

However, Sainz thinks that drivers in the midfield lose out during VSC persiods, while the race leader gains an advantage.

"In my opinion, they [VSC periods] are a bit useless, I don’t like it, it is not something that I enjoy," Sainz said. "Because when you are a midfielder, you prefer safety cars all the time, proper safety cars to regroup the field."

"It works as it should, but obviously people play a lot with it to warm their tyres, to create their own gaps before the pitstops," he added. "You can play a lot with it to your advantage or disadvantage of the others, so I don’t really enjoy it. I don’t think that it is something that is contributing in F1, that’s my personal opinion. If I am a race leader, I probably like it, if I am a midfielder, I probably don’t like it."

"I have been in many racing series where you have a 10-second lead, suddenly a safety car comes out and you have to battle again," he said. "But looking [at it], maybe it’s a bit more fair, but I don’t think it’s what Formula 1 needs, especially for a midfielder."