Carlos Sainz on Sunday night criticised the time taken to rescue him from his fire-engulfed Ferrari during a dramatic engine blow-up in Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix in Spielberg.
As Charles Leclerc claimed his first win in three months to revive his hopes of challenging Max Verstappen for the world championship – with the Dutchman second and Lewis Hamilton third – his team-mate Sainz was thrown into grave danger when a fire broke out at the back of his stalled car, with metal shards coming out of the exhaust, engine cover and sidepod gills.
Initially, the fire appeared at risk of overwhelming the Spaniard. After coming to a halt beyond the gravel, the car started rolling backwards down the hill at turn four, with the flames fanning towards his seat. However, as marshals failed to stop the wheels with chocks, Sainz eventually won his battle with gravity, unstrapping his seatbelts and leaping from his blazing machine, but the rescue took at least 30 seconds.
He eventually scampered towards safety, with the car sliding backwards into the tyre barrier.
As he was taken to safety by medical staff, Sainz waved to the crowd, indicating he had escaped harm, and soon enough he was back in the Ferrari garage being consoled by his mechanics.
He later admitted he had had a lucky escape but he was angry about the time he had spent in the burning car.
“It was not an ideal or an easy situation for sure, because I could see in my mirrors that my car was catching fire,” said Sainz.
“I was pressing the brake, but as soon as I tried to jump out, I didn’t want to leave the car completely free, out of control, and rolling backwards.
“I was calling the marshals to come and help me, to put something on the tyres to stop the car from rolling. But the whole process was a bit slow and at some point there was so much fire that I had to get a move on and I had to jump out.
“It is definitely something we need to look at how we could have done it a bit faster, because it was not an easy situation to be in.”
DISASTER FOR FERRARI!
Carlos Sainz is out of the race with engine failure! The Ferrari is on fire with flames pouring out. pic.twitter.com/kXzrGEvc6a
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) July 10, 2022
Sainz said that there had been no warning sign from his Ferrari engine until the moment he lost all power. “There was no feedback coming from the engine that this was about to happen, very sudden,” he said. “This is obviously a big loss of points and result for the team today because I think it could have been an easy one-two.
“The pace was there, the tyre degradation was very low on our car and we were fast. So, I will take it and turn the page as soon as possible.
“It is more difficult to take because we were about to cut the points to the leaders of the championship, both Max and Red Bull, to do a very big result for the team and one of the cars did not finish. It is heartbreaking but we will need to keep pushing, turn the page and it is still a long season ahead.”
The engine failure came as Sainz appeared in range to take second place in the Austrian Grand Prix away from Verstappen on lap 58 of 71. Leclerc won the race much to his team’s relief as he appeared to be complaining of throttle issues.
Leclerc said: “Weirdly [the throttle issue] was more or less the same time [as Sainz’s retirement]. I knew it was not a problem with the engine because it was the pedal that was feeling weird. Luckily, it went until the end of the race.”
Despite having a consistently quick car, engine failures had previously cost Leclerc in Spain and Azerbaijan. Strategy errors in Monaco also resulted in lost points.
Leclerc crossed the line 1.5 seconds ahead of Verstappen, with Lewis Hamilton another 40 seconds back. Hamilton, who made up five places from his starting slot of eighth, revealed after the race that he had suffered Covid twice. When asked why he still wore a face mask, he said: “I just noticed a lot of people around me getting sick and definitely don’t want to get sick again.”