Carlos Sainz Jr, Ferrari Formula 1 driver, went off the road during Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying. A gust of wind was the real culprit pushing the Spaniard to 15th place on the grid.
Sainz lost control and smashed his car into the barriers at the end of final corner. 22G impact was measured on his car which damaged its left-hand side.
He tried to take his car back into qualifying but front wing dislodged under the front wheels. He could not found reverse to find his way back with a broken wing. Therefore, he had to drop-out of Q2 qualifying and abandon his car on track side.
Sainz car slid through the corner into barriers which shocked him. He went back to garage and review the data to find the cause. Data showed overwhelming response of car to the wind gust, which made him “more calm”.
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“Yeah, very frustrating,” he said. “And to be honest I’m also very surprised, it’s not a mistake that I’ve done in a long time.
“I went straight away to the garage to see what had happened on the data, and what I could have done differently.
“After having a look at it, to be honest, I’m more calm about it. Because I saw that I actually entered the corner 5km/h slower than in the previous run. But there’s a 35-40km/h gust of tailwind compared to a 10km/h tailwind in Q1. And this probably just sent me on a massive overseer.
“Unfortunate, but at the same time, I don’t want to use it as an excuse. I think I owe an apology to the team. But at the same time, it’s not something that I’m going to dwell too much on. Because I’ve seen the data, and it has left me a bit more calm about it.”
Sainz also admitted to the fact that Ferrari is usually insensitive to the winds.
“These cars are massively wind sensitive, as you can imagine. But I’ve driven [ones with] worse wind sensitivities. And that’s why maybe it caught me by surprise a bit. It is what it is.
“I saw that I had entered the corner slower than in the previous run, I said, ‘Okay, I didn’t try anything crazy or anything stupid, and I just lost it.’ It’s how it goes sometimes, it’s how motorsport works, and learn from it.”
