There was a collision between Sainz and Piastri after the start. The race later ended for both.
Sainz braked and as he turned into the first corner, he pinned Piastri against the wall. As a result of the contact, both cars were damaged. Piastri finished almost immediately, Sainz continued but fell down the order. Ferrari explained that they kept it on track until mid-race in case a red flag was thrown and they could then fix the car.
Sainz blames Piastri for the incident. He sees it as a classic incident from the first round.
“I was fighting with Lewis and I had the maneuver pretty much done for the first corner,” said Sainz. “I hit the top of the corner cleanly and I did everything right, but unfortunately I think Oscar was trying to do a bit of an optimistic manoeuvre.”
“Yeah, it’s a bit of a shame because if you go through the past races here at Spa and you look at the first corner incidents, that’s exactly what it was.
“Anyone who tries the inside track to the first turn and tries to go there usually causes an accident. And this time I took it.”
Piastri sees it differently
“I think it was an incident in the first lap, in the first corner,” Piastri said. “I had a good start and got the front of my car next to him, but when we got into the braking zone, Carlos went a bit to the right and braked and I had to try to avoid it. From there to the top of the turn, my options were pretty limited.”
“When I think about it now, I think we both could have done it a little differently. It’s a very tight corner. Carlos also didn’t have many options because Lewis was there.’
“I think from Carlos’ point of view I was a bit surprised by the move to the right,” Piastri later said when asked by Motorsport.com. “For myself, I think that I had quite limited options from there. Maybe I could have braked a little later and moved more to the side, but that’s very easy to say in retrospect. I think once I was in that position it was pretty hard to move forward or back and I was a bit stuck. I tried to do what I could from that position, but I couldn’t do much.’
2023-07-30 18:13:13
#Sainz #blames #Piastri #collision #Australian #classic #incident
