Carlos Sainz rages at "stupid risks" by F1 rivals after Monaco GP exit

Carlos Sainz fumed at “stupid risks” taken by rival Formula 1 drivers for knocking him out of contention for points at the Monaco Grand Prix.

A clever strategy of backing up the midfield and giving each other a window in which to pit had helped to put Carlos Sainz and his Williams team-mate Alex Albon into the top 10 when the race was red-flagged.

Both were set to move up a spot after the resumption when George Russell took his drive-through penalty.

However, on the first lap of the restart, Sainz clipped the barrier on the exit of the hairpin after being hit by Nico Hulkenberg.

Just a few seconds later, as he tried to recover momentum, he was knocked into a spin by Franco Colapinto at Portier, ending his race on the spot.

“Very well-managed race up until that restart,” said the Spaniard when asked by Crash.net about the unfortunate end to his afternoon.

“I think we did a very good, solid pace, very good race in general was en route to score another couple of points this weekend with a solid race.

“But unfortunately people at the restart just decided to take stupid risks, and my race was over in a corner like Turn 6 that we've raced around here hundreds of times, and we know it always bunches up, and people going for the dream move get it wrong sometimes, and I was the victim of it.

“So yeah, very frustrating, because to throw all the effort of the team and two points to the bin is very frustrating.”

He added: “It's quite impressive that, with so much experience, around a track like this, that every year it bunches up in Loews [hairpin], people still can do this kind of mistakes.

“It's textbook Monaco, and you fall into the same mistakes sometimes.”

While Albon expressed some doubts on the radio, Sainz said he was happy with how the tactics of slowing down the field had played out, with Williams having already used the ploy successfully in the 2025 event.

“Normally, in these cases, there's so much going on that I leave it to the team to manage it,” he said.

“I think it was handled correctly. I had really good pace when I think I was freed up to push flat out, 1m18.0s when the rest of the midfield was in 1m19.0.

“Honestly, I showed really, really good pace. That's why I'm happy about today, but also very frustrated with the outcome, because in the end, just people being over optimistic ruins your race.”

Sainz is cautious about the FW48’s potential at his home race this weekend after the car showed well at recent temporary and street venues with slower corners.

“I think Barcelona will be very tricky for us with the overweight and the lack of downforce,” he said.

“So I expect maybe going back to fighting for Q1s, but if we keep developing the car for sure in tracks like this, we will have all the chance of scoring points. It's just today we binned them with the incident.”