Why Verstappen didn't crash during the start: 'This gave him a much better line'

Carlos Sainz made a big mistake on Sunday by hitting the wall next to the track. Where Max Verstappen went along the signs at high speed, it ended differently for the Spaniard. Jolyon Palmer explains the difference.

The outlet after the second bend at the Sochi Autodrom caused a lot of commotion this weekend. Drivers shoot off the track easily and shoot straight ahead without losing time. Verstappen was a good example of this, but Sainz and Romain Grosjean also showed how not to do it.

''In the end a driver will always try to do this as quickly as possible so that he loses as few places as possible, because in the end you are also racing off the track. Verstappen had a better line towards those signs because he went straight ahead so early. This allowed him to take much more speed and he didn't lose any position'', says Palmer at Formula1.com.

Sainz didn't go straight until much later, so he had to go at a different angle towards the signs. ''He came to those blocks with a slanted angle and had to slow down a lot to be able to save this. This he did and that's why he crashed. If he had slowed down, he would have driven at the back, because drivers who just didn't make the turn were punished the most. George Russell and Alexander Albon did the same and got back on the track at the back of the grid'', the former F1 driver concludes.