Carlos Sainz has described F1’s overtaking issues as “bit of a mess” after a number of processional races so far this season.

Overtaking has been at a premium in 2025 with dirty air making it much harder for drivers to pass, but Sainz believes the tyres also have a big part to play.

Carlos Sainz raises tyre concern in F1 plea

Pirelli, who have supplied F1 tyres since 2011, are in a constant battle between making the rubber durable but also degrade enough to make a race interesting with the drivers and fans on opposite sides of the debate.

But for this year, the Italian manufacturer improved the tyre, resulting in less degrading, which Sainz says has had an adverse effect on racing.

“I think first of all, fair play to Pirelli,” Sainz said. “They’ve done a step—we’ve always asked them for the tyres to degrade less and be less sensitive to overheating.

“They’ve done a step, and this year so far we can push more in the race. Now we’re back into one-stop races and we are complaining that there is not enough deg and we want more deg.

“So first of all, I think F1 needs to get all together to kind of follow up with the same narrative. Because we asked for one thing, the product improves, and then suddenly we all complain again. It’s a bit of a mess, if you ask me.

“What creates overtaking in my opinion is to have a delta to the car in front. If you’re only one tenth quicker in F1, you’re never going to pass. You need to be five, six, seven tenths quicker than the car in front around Suzuka to overtake. And the only way to generate that in Suzuka is with degradation. You cannot generate anything else.

“So I would be happy if they’re going to maybe go a step softer in compounds. Given that the tyre is more robust, going softer in compound will increase degradation and increase a bit the chance of overtaking.

“But if you go with the three hardest compounds on a track like Suzuka, for example, you’ll have flat-out racing with the three compounds and pit stop laps always more or less the same way. We all stopped on one lap. I think you will not get a tyre delta or an overtaking delta.

“So for me it’s more about trying to make sure the race is always between a one- and a two-stop, because like that you will have teams trying to do one-stops with high degradation and other teams running faster on a two-stop to try and overtake and make it to the flag.

“That’s my opinion. But as I said, we need to kind of all organise a bit our thoughts and keep Pirelli more of a clear understanding and target.”

F1 has at least taken some measures with Monaco as the Monte Carlo circuit increasingly looks out of date for modern cars. 2024 saw the top 10 finish in the same order they started, prompting the sport to introduce two or more mandatory pit stops.

Oliver Bearman, who was alongside Sainz, was asked if that measure would be necessarily at other circuits but the rookie said it was not for the time being.

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“I think not necessarily for all races—especially in my case in Suzuka, I was very happy that it wasn’t.

“We have circuits that have a higher chance of overtakes and others that are less. That was such a unique circumstance: the conditions, how cold it was. Sector 1, which is usually somewhere that’s so crucial on tyre management—we saw it with the new surface—we could push flat out on.

“So we didn’t really have so many corners that we were struggling with management. I think it was quite unique. I reckon we’re going to be surprised come Sunday night here, in this heat with, I think, 38kph gusts coming. The topic of tyre management or complaining will be maybe a little bit different.”

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