2023-07-31 02:38:26
Sainz blames Piastri’s inexperience for Belgian GP first-turn crash
Carlos Sainz blamed the inexperience of fellow McLaren driver Oscar Piastri for his crash at Turn 1 that led to his eventual withdrawal from the Belgian GP. Although the Ferrari driver was still on the field for 23 laps, his race was actually over at the La Source corner following running a few hundred meters.
Sainz got off to a decent start, braking late close to the first turn, racing from the outside to the inside, paralleling Lewis Hamilton into the apex. However, Piastri, who was already on the inside and was half a body short, insisted on squeezing in further. As a result, due to lack of space, the right side of the McLaren car rubbed once morest the protective wall, and the left side hit the side box of the Ferrari car.
As a result, Piastri’s steering system malfunctioned, and his ranking fell sharply. Finally, the car was parked on the sidelines and retired. And Sainz also lost competitiveness due to damage to the right side box, was overtaken by the rear drivers one following another, and chose to return to the garage to retire following 23 laps.
After the race, Sainz told the media: “I think it was an over-optimistic overtaking move by Oscar on me. It’s a bit of a pity because when you look back at Spa, you know what a typical first A corner accident, and this time it was my turn.”
“Everyone who tries to go inside into Turn 1 usually causes an incident or a crash, and this time it’s me who takes that. At some point, someone has to step back.”
After investigating the whole incident, the steward ruled that no further action was needed, but Sainz said: “I didn’t go too far, you can see from my car footage that I went through the apex perfectly and the car was over Lewis. I did lock the tyres, yes, but not too deep into the corner.”
“At a certain point, someone needs to back off, the guy next to my right rear wheel has to do it, instead of me going into the first turn and I let him pass me, especially I almost finished passing Lewis. .”
After the collision, Sainz’s ranking continued to decline due to the damage to the car, and finally he retired to the garage following halfway through the race. He explained: “The car is almost impossible to drive, but we insist on staying on the field and never give up. There were red flags and rain, but the rain did come and stopped quickly, and there were no red flags, so in the end we chose to retire.”
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