Carlos Sainz was in great form for the United States Grand Prix in Austin having earned pole position in qualifying on Saturday. Little did he know that come race day, his stint would be cut short by George Russell in turn one. Carlos had to retire the car after the collision due to damage to his radiator causing a water leak. The Spaniard was understandably frustrated and said he didn’t even need words to explain, just play back the tape.
As Sainz told Sky Sports F1: “I don’t think you need many words, I think you need images to see exactly what happened and the images speak for themselves.
“I was in the middle of a fight with Max into turn 1 and suddenly one guy that wasn’t in the battle came from nowhere and bumped into me so that’s it.”
He did admit that his start wasn’t the best, but he believes it’s a problem specific to the F1-75: “Our starts haven’t been great because we have an inherent problem with this car, normally P2 in Austin is better than P1. We’ve seen that in many, many years here.
“My start wasn’t too bad if you compare it to the Mercs, it was Max [Verstappen] that got out really good.”
George Russell for his part has since apologised and admitted he was at fault for the accident: “I went into turn one, braked quite deep and when I saw Carlos was on the outside of Max, I was anticipating him to hang it around the outside. But he cut back and that caught me by surprise. By that point, the damage was already done.
“I’ve seen Carlos and apologised to him. I probably should have been aware of that potential.”
Russell didn’t get off Scott-free, however, as there was damage left over by the collision: “We had some damage which we thought was only balance and not downforce. But I’m hoping, when we look at the car, it’s more than we expected because I was nowhere today, absolutely nowhere.”
Max Verstappen went on to win the Grand Prix, sealing Red Bull as the winners of the Constructors’ Championship.
For more, here’s how Carlos Sainz did what Daniel Ricciardo couldn’t.
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