Carlos Sainz goes through all emotions while discussing about recovery and winning F1 Australian GP, as Frederic Vasseur has praise.
It was certainly an unexpected win for Sainz as Ferrari team boss Vasseur pointed out but the Spaniard was relentless in F1 Australian GP, only weeks after his appendix operation. He wasn’t even sure of racing until he took the flight to Australia.
Even then, it depended on fitness and he gave himself FP1 and FP2 to decide. Once feeling well everyday, Sainz took it on to do the full weekend but full race distance was always a question mark considering the strain that one goes through.
But Sainz managed it well and the reward was a race win after an early duel against Red Bull’s Max Verstappen which was short-lived after the Dutchman’s retirement. The Spaniard controlled from then on, where teammate Charles Leclerc couldn’t do much.
Win meaning –
Sainz: “Yeah, thank you very much. But yeah, and I think it’s not only the last two weeks. It’s the whole start to the year in general, how the year started with the news of the non-renewal. Then you get yourself fit. You get yourself ready for the start of the season, pushing flat out. And then you get to Bahrain. You do a good podium. You say, ‘OK, now the season is starting well and I can keep the momentum going’. And suddenly, boom, they’re missing a race in Jeddah and the operation. Long days in bed, not knowing if I was going to be back in time. Obviously, a lot of unknowns. Am I going to be back fit? Am I going to be back feeling still good with the car? And then suddenly you come back and win. So, yes, what I said on the radio – life is a roller coaster sometimes, but it can be really nice and good to you sometimes. Just letting it sink in and enjoying the moment.”
Apprehension over fitness –
Sainz: “How nervous I was? I was confident about the first half of the race that I was going to be OK because it’s more or less the laps that I did on Friday. Obviously, the second half of the race was a bit of an unknown. But yeah, once I got up in front and I had a gap, you can manage everything. You can manage yourself, you can manage the tyres, you have less pressure. You can choose your places where to push and not to push you know, and everything becomes a lot easier. So yeah, I’m not going to lie, the last five or 10 laps I was a bit stiff and tired but nothing that was slowing me down too much.”
Duel with Verstappen –
Sainz: “Yeah, I got a decent start from the dirty side of the grid, but obviously couldn’t put Max under pressure into Turn 1, but from there on it was a kind of a very strategic first lap and a half where you are wanting to protect the tyre from opening up the graining. But at the same time, I knew this weekend and this race, I could have the pace to challenge Max. And I thought to myself, with how powerful the DRS is around here, if I get myself within the DRS range after lap one, we can put him a bit under pressure. I think he did a mistake into Turn 3 that allowed me to stay within the DRS and I could feel myself being pretty quick. And then, yeah, I don’t know when his brakes started to go, but yeah, in dirty air, obviously, it’s not the same than in clean air with a big gap.”
Physical holding since FP1 until race –
Sainz: “Yeah, I guess my body is still a bit in protection mode. So everything I do is a bit more slow and a bit more cautious because obviously when they go through your abdominal, it is a weird feeling, as I said. But it’s what I said at the beginning of the weekend, without pain, even if I’m a bit in protection mode, I can drive no problem. Physically, what I felt towards the end of the race… Just very stiff. Obviously, spending seven days in bed is, for your physical fitness and for all the muscles, it’s just not very healthy for an athlete. But as I said, only the last stint, I would say, I was a bit more stiff. Until the last stint, I was perfectly fine. Still with this weird feeling, but nothing that was slowing me down at all. I was confident with the car and pushing.”
Recovery from operation to travel to Australia –
Sainz: “Yeah, I just, as soon as I got my appendix removed, I went on the internet and started talking with professionals and said, ‘OK, what helps to speed up recovery?’ And obviously from that point onwards, I started doing all the sort of things that you can do to speed up recovery, the wounds, the scar tissue, what you can help to be faster on that, talking to other athletes, talking to other doctors in Spain, internationally. And then I put together a plan with my team. The reason why athletes recover faster is because you can dedicate 24 hours per day for seven days to recovery. And that’s exactly what I did. I started going to hyperbaric chambers twice a day for one hour, taking an Indiba machine, that is electromagnetic thing for the wounds.
“I was programming my time in bed, my time to go for a walk, my time to eat, the kind of food that you have to recover. Just everything is centered around recovery to try to be ready for Australia. Now, you ask me, nine days ago, when I was about to catch the flight to come to Australia, I was still in bed. Barely I could use my abdominal to move. And I was like, this is not going to happen. But I took the flight, and suddenly when I landed in Australia, the feeling was a lot better. And every 24 hours, I was making a lot more progress than the first seven days, which is actually what all the doctors and all the professional people told me. Don’t worry, because the second week, every day is going to improve a lot more than the first week. And even Alex Albon told me this, I remember. So it just followed more or less what everyone told me and put together a good plan.
Sainz’s win –
Vasseur: “I didn’t expect less from him. This winter we agreed together to push until the last lap of the season. And he did a fantastic job. He was there in Bahrain, pushing the team also, and for sure that Jeddah was a tough weekend, a tough weekend for Carlos, a tough weekend for the team. But the recovery is mega, but you have to keep in mind that two weeks ago, he was in the hospital. I think even Friday he was not 100 per cent sure to be able to drive. And after a couple of laps, he was on the pace, and this was part of the success – because you can’t give up one lap in free practice if you want to perform. For sure, it’s amazing. If you have a look on where he’s coming from nobody expected a result like this.”
Here’s how F1 Australian GP panned out
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