Colapinto nearly took three cars out at the start

Carlos Sainz Jnr accused Franco Colapinto of risking a multi-car crash at the start of the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Williams driver passed the Ferrari, plus Alexander Albon in the other Williams and RB’s Yuki Tsunoda, by diving down the inside of them at turn one.

Colapinto, who went on to finish 11th in his third Formula 1 race, said he “did the best start I could.”

“There was a pretty nice gap and I went for it and it worked out,” he told the official F1 channel. “Here it’s very important, the start. To leave turn three in front of some cars is always nice and you are in a much better position for later in the race.”

Start, Singapore, 2024 — Colapinto made a bold lunge down the inside

Albon was among those unimpressed by Colapinto’s move. “Franco just divebombed,” he exclaimed on his race. “What’s he doing?”

Sainz said he had to take evasive action because of the Williams driver’s lunge up the inside. “It was damage limitation for us today, especially after a very tricky start where we had to take avoiding action to a Williams that nearly took two or three out of the race and we had to just avoid the damage,” he said.

The Ferrari driver went on to finish seventh, which he said was the best he could do after his compromised start to the race.

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“From then on it felt like we were always going to be stuck in that midfield group with a lack of overtaking opportunities here around Singapore,” he said. “We decided to box all the way in lap 12, undercut the whole midfield, leaving us exposed at the end of a race with very worn tyres.

“But at least I did some good overtakes there at the beginning, managed to show a bit of pace and then just survive until the end.”

A crash in qualifying left Sainz 10th on the grid. He said Ferrari showed the pace to score better results than his seventh and Charles Leclerc’s fifth.

“I think both Charles and I, whenever we had free air, we showed that the car in the race never had a problem and we were quite strong,” he said. “Our issue this year seems to be more qualifying and putting the tyres in the right window, which seems to be a bit of a weakness that we need to address.

“So we will try and work on this for the last six races of the year because I’m pretty sure that if we put ourselves in the top three in quali, then we can race from there for a race win.”