Sainz: Current F1 cars made me ‘a passenger’ in heavy crash

Carlos Sainz says he was made a passenger in his heavy crash during practice for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as the current generation of Formula 1 cars snap away so quickly.

The Ferrari driver was entering the high-speed Turn 3 early in FP2 when the car appeared to be unsettled by a bump and he spun through 360 degrees before hitting the barrier hard on the outside of the track. The session was red-flagged for over 20 minutes as a result of the clean-up operation, and Sainz says the way the uneven track surface caused him to lose performance meant there was no time to regain control.

“For some reason there’s been a change in the track compared to other years,” Sainz said. “There’s two bumps -- one at the exit of Turn 2 and one at the entry of Turn 3 -- that with this generation of car is upsetting it a lot. It nearly caught me out in FP1 and I changed a few things in the setup and in the line trying to get rid of it and then for some reason again on that lap it surprised me.

“It must have been an angle or exactly the way I took the bump and it made me be a passenger from there on. We’ve seen before with this generation of cars that any of these small bumps can really make you spin or make you have a pretty heavy crash. It’s not ideal but it is what it is. We’ll try and make it better for tomorrow.”

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Sainz suggested there could also have been other factors that played a role in the crash after making setup changes between sessions.

“We were definitely changing things from FP1 to FP2 that might have had an effect, but obviously I’m not going to go into details about that," he said. "Unfortunately I just couldn’t control the car -- it just snapped on me and it’s those moments where you feel like you are a complete passenger and you wish you maybe would have done something different.”

Sainz confirmed that he was physically fine despite the heavy impact as a result of the crash, as he went side-on into barrier.

“I’m feeling good, thanks -- it was a pretty big crash but again, with these safe cars you can get away with these pretty big hits pretty untouched and that’s the case. I’m obviously a little bit sore but nothing to worry about … We shouldn’t take any penalties, so all good for the rest of the weekend.”