Ferrari wrongly accused of snubbing Carlos Sainz podium celebrations in Bahrain

Carlos Sainz looking down

Ferrari personnel were present in numbers to celebrate Carlos Sainz’s Bahrain podium, despite television footage seemingly showing him to be alone.

Sainz bagged Ferrari’s first podium of the 2024 season when he brought his SF-24 home in third place behind the Red Bull team-mates at the Sakhir circuit.

Did Ferrari snub Carlos Sainz after his Bahrain P3?

And he did it after overtaking Charles Leclerc twice on the track, the first of which was perhaps a little too close for Ferrari’s liking.

But beating the Scuderia’s preferred driver, that said on the back of the team’s decision to retain Leclerc for 2025 while dropping Sainz for Lewis Hamilton, fans shared a video clip on social media that showed Sainz standing alone after climbing out of his car in parc ferme.

“He was looking for his team and not a single person was there, FCK them,” said one X user, to which another replied, “Sainz definitely doesn’t deserve that”.

However, the viral video is misleading.

According to Marca, that’s because the “camera shot did not cover the entire length of the fence with which the podium area is delimited and behind which the employees of each team that has a driver at the ceremony stand. His mechanics were all there, as well as his father and his cousin and representative, Carlos Oñoro.”

The Spanish publication added: “There is nothing that he has been ‘abandoned’ by the employees of the ‘Cavallino’ brand, that they are gaslighting him, or anything like that.”

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The report added that a new F1 initiative to sell VIP tickets to the pit area meant the Ferrari personnel had to work their way through a traffic jam to celebrate with their driver.

As for Ferrari’s pit stop strategy leaving Sainz to pass Leclerc twice with Ferrari pitting Leclerc first which allowed him to undercut Sainz, the Spaniard doesn’t believe it was a deliberate ploy to put him behind his team-mate.

“I don’t think it was an intended ‘undercut’,” he said.

“I think Charles degraded the tyres probably a bit earlier than me, and they decided to keep me out for three or four laps. Honestly, those three or four laps were very strong. I think I managed to go down to 37s, low 37s again. So it was worth it.

“Then luckily it didn’t compromise my race because I could pass Charles fairly quickly and go and attack George [Russell], which I passed also quite quickly. So I don’t think I lost too much race time on that situation.”

Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur was full of praise for Sainz and his professionalism in Bahrain.

“Honestly,” he told the media including PlanetF1.com’s Thomas Maher. “I was convinced that he would have this kind of reaction. It’s also why we decided to get it out early, turn the page and focus on the season.

“And the reaction of Carlos was not unprofessional. Today he did a very good job.”