Sainz unhappy after Ferrari 'compromised' race with VSC pitstop

Carlos Sainz was left unhappy with Ferrari's strategy in the Austrian Grand Prix, believing their double-stack Formula 1 pitstop under the Virtual Safety Car "compromised" his race.

The Spaniard was quicker than Charles Leclerc in the opening stages of the race, but Ferrari elected to prevent both drivers from exchanging position to increase the gap to those behind them.

When an early VSC was called for Nico Hulkenberg's stricken Haas, Ferrari pitted both drivers for a set of new Mediums. Sainz felt this affected his race, as it meant he fell behind those who did not pit and lost time.

"I was very quick in the first and second stint, but the second stint was already compromised by the first sitting behind Charles and catching the VSC ending," he told media, including RacingNews365.com.

"This made me lose seven seconds of race time and positions to cars that I shouldn't have lost. My race was compromised from that point onwards."

Sainz wants Ferrari to review their strategy after he was told not to fight Leclerc, which in turn affected his race and ability to increase the gap to Perez at the end.

"We need to analyse what what we could have done," he added.

"We had agreed before the race to work as a team in the first stint to open up to the cars behind so they didn't want to fight.

"I followed the plan, even though I had quite a bit of pace and I was quite comfortable and probably could have passed [Leclerc].

"It's a shame after doing the teamwork then the pitstop arrives and you're compromising the way I race."

Sainz: Track limits penalty came when I was pushing like hell

Sainz was one of several drivers who fell foul of the track limits penalties that were issued during the race for drivers that went wide at Turns 9 and 10.

He was issued with a five-second time penalty midway through the race, which he served during his final pit stop.

The Ferrari driver said it was due to him focusing on catching Hamilton and Norris after the VSC period, and blamed lack of visibility in the cockpit.

He explained: "I cannot see inside the car the track limits, maybe I'm very low.

"I was also doing them while pushing flat out to recover the time I lost during the pitstop while passing Hamilton, Norris, Perez I passed them all at once pushing like hell."