In Ferrari territory, Sainz was eager for a strong result after the disappointment of his early retirement at the Australian Grand Prix.
But it all went wrong within seconds of the start of the Emilia Romagna GP after Ricciardo tagged Sainz at the first chicane and sent him crashing into the gravel run-off.
Although Daniel Ricciardo was able to continue, although weighed down, Sainz was out of the race in his second consecutive KO.
As soon as the grand prix was over, Ricciardo approached the Ferrari garage to apologize to Carlos Sainz. It was a gesture that was greatly appreciated.
“It says a lot about Daniel as a competitor and as an athlete that immediately after a race, where you could see that it had been difficult, the first thing he did was go into the Ferrari box and apologize to me.”
“All the mechanics were there with me and we all thanked him for the gesture. That’s why there are no hard feelings with Daniel for what happened.”
“It could happen to anyone. But unfortunately, it had to happen to me, coming from the Melbourne accident. The incident doesn’t really have any mystery. I think if you see the on board and what happened, it’s very clear to everyone.” .
Although Sainz has started empty for two races (beyond Saturday’s sprint), he says the biggest frustration is that he has lost valuable mileage in his Ferrari.
At a time when he is trying to match the performance of his team-mate Charles Leclerc, who has adapted better to the F1-75, not accumulating more experience is costly.
“They are two completely different incidents with very similar results, which means you end up not doing any of the 60 laps of the race,” he lamented. “At this time it would be very useful for me to do so.”
“So actually the result doesn’t even hurt that much. But I’m losing so much track time and losing so many laps with this car in the last two races, it’s a shame.”
“The difficult thing is that they were in two consecutive appointments because, throughout the season, there will always be a race where you make a mistake and there will always be another race where you are forced to leave.
“For me, unfortunately, it’s happened all the time. And that’s why it hurts more and it’s harder. But hopefully we put that behind us and now we can start to focus on the rest of the year.”
