This is a quick post so I will make it as straightforward as possible. After the 2024 Las Vegas GP there has been conflicting information on social media on whether or not Carlos Sainz was lifting before turn 12 to allow Verstappen to be within the one-second threshold to get DRS. Allowing so would be detrimental to the team’s aspirations of becoming World Constructors’ Champions, so accusing a driver of hampering his teammate is a big deal if you ask me. I wanted to see for myself if this is something that happened so I’m sharing my results with you. Enjoy.

Introduction

This analysis is only possible after extensive post-processing of the raw telemetry data. Other sources of this information use algorithms that, unfortunately, provide unreliable results. I post-process the data in a unique way that allows me to sync the throttle and speed traces much more accurately, allowing me to obtain higher-quality results.

Throttle trace

In this chart, the faint lines represent the throttle trace for each lap, while the thick lines represent a calculated average for all of the laps of each individual subset of the data. The shaded section of the chart shows the area of interest.

I decided to divide Sainz’s data into two different subsets. The first one contains laps 33 to 40 when Carlos was chasing Verstappen, while the second one includes laps 43 to 47, just after Carlos managed to overtake Verstappen but before Leclerc managed to overtake Max. It’s pretty clear that Carlos would not have lifted earlier when he was chasing Verstappen, so this will be our reference data. It’s the second subset (laps 43 to 47) that we’re interested in. Do we see anything strange?

My answer is a simple no. It looks like Carlos was a bit more conservative with the throttle when he was chasing Max (laps 33 to 40), most likely due to the effect of the dirty air coming from the leading car. It’s also possible that he as doing a bit of lift and coast to conserve fuel and preserve battery energy before attacking Max on the main straight. On laps 43 to 47 Carlos lifted less than when he was chasing Max, and he also tended to lift a bit later when reaching T12. After navigating the turn he was just as aggressive at accelerating out of it before reaching the long straight between T13 and T14.

Speed trace

What about the actual speed? Maybe Carlos was using a less aggressive ERS deployment? Once again, I don’t see anything funny. Carlos had less speed when chasing Verstappen into T12, most likely conserving the tires and managing the dirty air caused by the leading car. His speed after coming out of T12 was pretty much the same, meaning that he was indeed doing his best to accelerate out of the corner and have an advantage while driving on the long straight between T13 and T14.

Final remarks

I don’t see any evidence of Carlos trying to keep Max Verstappen within DRS range. It is true that Carlos has done this in the past in Singapore and even on this same Las Vegas GP track, but the data doesn’t support the (conspiracy) theory that he was purposely hampering Charles Leclerc by helping Verstappen stay within DRS range.

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