12/06/2017
NEWS STORY
Carlos Sainz has been handed a three-place grid penalty - and 2 penalty points - following the incident on the opening lap of yesterday's Canadian Grand Prix which saw the Spaniard and Felipe Massa eliminated.
The Toro Rosso driver was just ahead of Romain Grosjean coming out of Turn 2, but on the run to Turn 3 he veered across the track and hit the Haas which in turn sent the Spaniard into a spin and ended up taking out Felipe Massa.
What the... what a mental guy!" cried Grosjean in his usually subdued manner. "What the!"
"What they are doing?" asked Alonso who had witnessed the incident. "Crazy start... they need to calm down."
While Sainz insisted that he had not seen Grosjean in his mirrors and was not aware of his presence, he failed to convince the stewards.
"The driver of Car 55 (Sainz) claimed he checked his mirrors but that Car 8 (Grosjean) was in his blind spot and therefore he did not see it," they said following their post-race investigation.
"Notwithstanding this, and our conclusion that the collision was not caused by a deliberate act on the part of Sainz, we find that his assumption (as he stated) that there was no car alongside him and therefore he could move to that track position, was careless and potentially dangerous. This was evidenced by the further collision of Grosjean with Massa, a direct result of this incident, which caused the retirement of the Brazilian."
Sainz was therefore handed a 3-place grid drop for Azerbaijan and a further 2 penalty points.
"I had a good start and was in P12, trying to overtake Fernando around the outside of Turn 2," said the Spaniard. "He got better traction than me out of there so I focused on positioning myself to try and attack him into Turn 3 and, all of a sudden, I touched with a Haas that was on my right-hand side...
"I have to say I never saw the car there, it's simply a dead angle in my mirrors so I never knew he was there. If I had realized I was there, of course I would've been more careful and left some space.
"Once we collided I was just a passenger, crashed into the wall and that was the end of my race unfortunately.
"I'd like to say sorry, especially to Felipe, who received a touch from me... I just couldn't do anything to avoid it. It was a big crash, but I'm fine.
"the whole weekend has been a bit difficult for us, starting with not being able to run in FP1, then yesterday's qualifying and today's accident... It's now time to focus on Baku; luckily we have 20 Formula 1 races so we can forget this weekend!"
Taking to Twitter, Sainz subsequently wrote: "Apologies to Romain and as a consequence Felipe, Romain was simply on my blind spot and never got to see him. Glad we are all OK!"
"Great attitude," responded Grosjean. "Thanks mate See you in Baku."