Lando Norris told critical Formula 1 fans watching from home who criticised drivers for complaining about the visibility at the Japanese Grand Prix to "keep your mouth shut".
That blunt instruction came as he reflected on a truncated race at Suzuka, which took place amid heavy downpours. The rain led to a two-hour delay as the race was red-flagged after the first lap, and even when the action was able to resume there was still a huge amount of spray being thrown up in the air.
While things didn't look too bad on TV at times, it was much worse from the point of view of the drivers themselves. Norris was joined by Alex Albon in asserting that the view from their helmets was a lot worse than the on-board cameras showed.
Indeed, the Brit snapped back at fans from home who had suggested the drivers might have been making a bigger deal out of it than was necessary. "The difficult thing is not that it's too wet, but that it's difficult to see anything at all – those are two different things," he said.
"In qualifying, those conditions would be perfectly fine and I would love to race. But when you start 10th on the grid and you can't see anything... and you can say 'it didn't look that bad on TV'. But if you say something like that, you have to keep your mouth shut because the risk we take to race in those conditions, it's crazy.
"You also don't see when someone stops in front of you. I didn't see Carlos' crash. If I'd been a metre to the left, I'd have crashed right into him because you just can't see anything." The McLaren driver went on to call for a solution to be found for spray that comes off F1 cars, to allow for more racing in very wet conditions.
Meanwhile, fellow racer Albon said the visibility – or lack thereof – was the worst he has ever encountered. The Williams driver's race ended on the first lap after suffering a mechanical issue, and questioned if it was the right decision to get going at all, considering it was red-flagged after that Sainz crash in the first minute of action.
He told The Race : "That was the worst conditions I've experienced in my racing career. I'm very surprised that we went to the start – I think everyone was keen to get the race started, but I don't think we should have started the race.
"I couldn't see anything in front of me, I was looking in the corner of my eye, seeing where the white lines were, knowing that the track was somewhere in front of me but not being able to tell. I was kind of like a pinball just going from track edge to track edge, trying to keep the car on the track.
"Looking for a sign, a fence, something, a braking marker to kind of understand where I was on the circuit – I've had that experience before in junior levels, but I've never had it that bad. Quite scary and I'm very thankful nobody got injured."
