F1 | Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc’s hilarious van trip after flight diversion. Carlos Sainz Jr. reveals the funny story of his improvised van trip with Charles Leclerc.

A rather turbulent return from Baku for the former Ferrari driver pairing, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. But what really happened?
Carlos Sainz Jr. and Charles Leclerc found themselves on an improvised van journey last week after their flight to Nice was diverted to Genoa. The Monegasque driver had shared the incident with his followers on social media. Sainz and Leclerc often travel together, both because of their strong friendship and because they share some common sponsors.

During his latest meeting with the team members in Grove, before flying to Singapore, Carlos Sainz Jr. revealed more funny details about the Genoa-Monaco trip.
Genoa-Monaco
Carlos Sainz Jr. visited the Williams factory on Monday, September 29, and on that occasion he returned to the topic of the van journey from Genoa to Monaco with Charles Leclerc. The Spanish driver explained how it all started: “Charles was having fun filming me because he saw me driving that van and, in his eyes, it was a very funny scene. I felt like a dad, as if I were taking the kids to school.”

The decision to land in Genoa instead of Nice as originally planned was made by Ferrari’s number 16 driver: “Yes, we were basically about to land in Nice, and suddenly the captain tells us: ‘A very, very bad storm is about to hit Nice. Do you want to divert? It will be an extremely turbulent landing if we try. If I were you, I would go for Genoa. Two hours by car.’ And Charles immediately says: ‘Yes, better to play it safe. Let’s go to Genoa, no problem. I don’t want to take risks.’”

For Carlos Sainz Jr. a bit of turbulence would not have been a problem: “I can handle a bit of turbulence. Clearly, he can’t.” Once they landed, however, the two drivers discovered that other colleagues just ahead of them had landed in Nice without any problem. The decision had already been made and at that point they needed a car to return home: “We go to the desk and tell the girl: ‘Look, we need a car. It doesn’t matter what you give us, but we need it right now.’ And she didn’t understand that we were in a hurry. She was taking forever.” He added: “Anyway, it took her about half an hour to give us a car. In the end, she gave us this big, old van…”

Who ended up driving? Sainz admitted: “I told Charles: ‘Since you decided to divert to Genoa, then I’ll drive. I trust my abilities. So I think I should be the one driving this van.’ I was so angry with him for making us divert that I said: ‘I’ll drive. I’ll push relatively a bit, you sit down and keep quiet until we get home.’”
A little misadventure that eventually turned into a day to remember.