After ignoring team orders at the Australian Grand Prix to let Max Verstappen pass him, Carlos Sainz says it is up to his team-mate to clear things up with Toro Rosso, not him.
After his strategy shuffled him down the order, Verstappen called on the team to order Sainz to let him through in order to attack Jolyon Palmer's Renault ahead. Sainz ignored the orders and stands by his decision, saying it is up to Verstappen and Toro Rosso to deal with the issue between themselves.
"It's not ideal to have someone saying 'Oh I'm much faster, let me by' because it's not true," Sainz said. "In the end I can't complain to him and he can't complain to me because it was more him with the team having a problem than him with me, I think.
"I have nothing really to clarify with him, it's more up to him and the team to see what the hell happened to them or to his strategy or to his pit stop. For me with Max, he hit me from behind -- luckily for both nothing happened because then I think it would have been a bit different -- but what did I do to him or what did he do to me?"
Sainz said there was an agreement ahead of the start of the season not to implement team orders unless the two drivers are on different strategies.
"Obviously we have our meetings in January and we decided that whenever we are on the same strategy, on the same compound, more or less on the same stop lap, there are no team orders. We are free to fight and we are free to do whatever we want, respectfully. Obviously, because we are team-mates.
"So when they opened the radio and told me about this team order I knew that something was going on behind me, that was something probably not correct and I didn't react to them. I just told them maybe in one or two laps I would let him past, but I did not necessarily react to this team order. It's not an obligation for me because I know what we have agreed before this race. That's why I simply waited a bit and actually the overtaking came one lap after.
"You need to understand that I don't hear Max's radio communications so I don't really know what's going on behind me. What I know is that when the team told me to let him past that I knew for sure he was saying something. You realise: 'OK, the team is asking me to let him past, there must be something wrong going on back there'. Especially when I know that I'm on the same strategy and I don't need to let anyone past when I'm on the same strategy. So I knew that something probably was going on, that some tension was in the air because I could sense it. But after the race obviously I just preferred not to comment on it and not to enter in to any polemics because I think it was unnecessary."