Sainz had a problem at the start when he got a flat tire after bumping into Oscar Piastri. It seemed like his race was over when he stopped at Casino Square.
But then there was a big crash involving Sergio Perez from Red Bull and the two Haas cars. This caused a red flag, which helped Sainz get another chance.
According to F1 rules, when there’s a red flag, they look at where all the cars were just before the crash. Since Guanyu Zhou’s car hadn’t passed a certain point, they decided to use an earlier point to set the order for the restart.
So, instead of starting from the back, Sainz got to go back to his original third spot on the grid and ended up finishing on the podium.
Lando Norris, who was in third place before the red flag, didn’t think it was fair. He said, “It’s frustrating and unfair because someone makes a mistake, and because of some cars or whatever, they didn’t cross the line before the red flag, and then they get a free pit stop. It’s unfair.”
Other drivers and team bosses also thought it was strange. George Russell from Mercedes said, “It’s not correct,” while McLaren boss Andrea Stella said Sainz was lucky.
Even though Norris was unhappy, the red flag helped his teammate Piastri. His car got damaged in the crash with Sainz, but thanks to the red flag, they could fix some of it. Without the repairs, Piastri would have been slower by about half a second per lap.
