Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz was involved in a late red flag crash in the final stages of the qualifying session for the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix, as Red Bull’s Sergio Perez spun at Portier after losing the rear of his RB18 car. The Ferrari driver was unfortunately the first to arrive on the scene and had no time to react in order to avoid the stricken Red Bull car which suddenly appeared in front of him.
Carlos Sainz explained that he saw the initial yellow flags for Sergio Perez’s incident at the last moment and due to the high walls around the corner he was not able to see where the Red Bull driver had ended up on the track and therefore avoid an impact:
“I was coming from a blind corner that was Turn 7, you go full throttle from Turn 7 and when I entered on my left-hand side I could see a yellow flag coming out. Immediately as I realised it was a yellow flag I realised that the car in front of me had crashed. You don’t see where he had crashed, so you enter the corner without knowing where he is going to be, so I just hit the brakes. I tried to do the corner radius as tight as possible and just as I was going to manage to avoid him I hit the brake a bit harder and managed to clip him with the back of my car. It would’ve been a pretty good save if I would’ve saved it, because there was basically no time to save it, but it is what happens in Monaco.” – the Spanish driver said at the end of the qualifying session in Monaco.
The incident caused by Sergio Perez’s spin did not allow any driver to complete the final Q3 run and therefore qualifying order remained unchanged, just like last season, when Charles Leclerc crashed on his final fast lap. As a result, Carlos Sainz will start the Monaco Grand Prix from P2, just behind his Maranello teammate.
“It is still great news for the team, second wasn’t bad, I think it was coming along nicely with qualifying,” he added -“Unfortunately in my Q3 run one, we had the two Mercedes in the middle of my fast lap that they were doing a build-up lap. I found one Mercedes in the middle of sector two and the other one in sector three. It was a scrappy first run in Q3 but I was looking forward to that final showdown here in Monaco, that is where you give that extra bit. But every year in Monaco it seems a tradition that someone crashes in front of me and you cannot complete the lap that is normally the most exciting lap around Monaco. We start P2 which I think is a great position to start and tomorrow anything can happen with the rain, if it comes. We’re in a good position.” – the Spanish driver continued.
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Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz will have to work together and keep the two Red Bull cars behind them, as Sergio Perez and Formula 1 world championship leader Max Verstappen will start from P3 and P4.
Formula 1 journalist and technical expert Peter Windsor explained that the damage to Sergio Perez’s Red Bull car was estimated to be about $750k, while the repairs for Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari F1-75 car cost about $500K, which represent significant dents in the limited budgets of both teams. About equal to one aero update, as Peter Windsor pointed out.
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