Carlos Sainz “fed up” after unseen clash with Charles Leclerc costs him F1 points

Carlos Sainz says he is “fed up” with a string of misfortune after an unseen incident with Charles Leclerc denied him a points finish in the British Grand Prix.

Sainz was chasing Leclerc for eighth place in the closing stages of the race at Silverstone when the Ferrari driver ran wide at Stowe on slick tyres, dragging his former teammate off along with him.

The incident dropped the Williams driver to 12th place and, with his front wing and floor also damaged, he could not recover any positions in the remainder of the race.

It marked the second successive race weekend where Sainz failed to score, having not even started the Austrian GP due to brake issues on the grid.

Although the Spaniard refrained from blaming Leclerc directly, he admitted that he is getting increasingly frustrated with losing points due to factors that are outside of his control.

“Going well,” he said sarcastically. “Like the whole year so far, we were doing everything right, good strategy goals, good driving. 

“[I was] P7-P8 at the time, 10 laps to go when I was fighting with Charles. I think he was on his outlap on the slicks. He lost control of the car and crashed into me and that was it. That was it.

“I went back to P12 with a damaged car and I finished P12. Again, very unlucky. A bit fed up with this situation where something happens to us that is out of our control. 

“No offence to Charles, this always can happen to any driver, but I’m just upset with the fact that it happened to me today again when we were about to have a clean weekend and a clean race.”

Sainz made a highly-anticipated move to Williams this year after losing his seat at Ferrari to seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.

However, despite showing promising pace on several occasions, he has only accumulated 13 points so far, leaving him 15th in the standings.

By contrast, teammate Alex Albon took his tally to 46 points with another top-10 finish at Silverstone, cementing his grip on eighth place in the drivers' championship.

Sainz admitted that it’s “frustrating” and “depressing”  for him not to be able to deliver to his potential because of external factors.

“Honestly, this is so frustrating to have so many things out of your control in a row,” Sainz rued.

“I cannot explain to you how you feel as an athlete when you keep going to a simulator, doing all your marketing events, putting on a happy face, doing all your free practice, doing everything you can to score a good result.

“In the race you take your risks, you do everything right [with] strategy calls and then something like this out of your control happens and you're out.  Now we need to wait another two weeks to go racing, but it gets to a point where it's just extremely frustrating and depressing.”