In the wake of the Austrian Grand Prix, Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 driver Carlos Sainz has expressed his anger at missing out on an “easy one-two” finish after his F1-75 burst into flames.
Although the Spaniard didn’t quite have the pace of his race-winning teammate Charles Leclerc on Sunday, he was eying up a pass on second place runner Max Verstappen around lap 56 of 71 when smoke was seen coming from the back of his Ferrari.
Sainz was forced to park up at the exit of Turn 4, the awkward gradient then making it hard for the Spaniard to jump clear of the car.
“Yes, it was a very tricky situation because I wanted to jump out, but the car was rolling backwards and I didn’t want the car to roll back forever and I knew I was catching a bit of fire and I was waiting for the marshals to come. They never came until quite late, so it was a bit of a moment, but nothing happened,” said Sainz.
While it was an unfortunate setback for Sainz’ in the drivers championship, Ferrari’s constructors’ points loss was somewhat mitigated by Red Bull’s Sergio Perez retirement after he collided with George Russel on lap one.
That leaves Scuderia Ferrari second, just 56 points behind Red Bull in the constructors’ championship standings.
“We were on for a very easy P2 and a one-two for the team, a very big result for the team,” said Sainz.
“We were very quick on the hard tyres especially, and we were catching back up on Charles. Good signs, I had the pace and the momentum that we were getting was very nice.”
“But it looks to be the story of my season: as soon as we get a bit of momentum, there is something that goes wrong and it’s difficult to continue with it. This weekend, we were very quick and it should have been an easy one-two for the team.”