$135 Million Rule Could Handicap Ferrari on Sunday After Carlos Sainz Collides With Barrier in Abu Dhabi

During FP2 ahead of the upcoming Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz binned his SF-23 in the barriers coming out of turn 3. The extensive damage to the car has given the mechanics a huge task to rebuild. However, Fred Vasseur has revealed that there is a chance that Sainz may have to sit the season finale out, per reports on X.

The report coming out of X revealed Vasseur as revealing that “if they had serious damage to Carlos Sainz’s car again, then they would risk not fielding Sainz for the race because the costs were already tight with the cost cap.”

Fred Vasseur pasca Vegas kemarin bilang kalau seandainya mereka kembali mendapat kerusakan berat di mobil Carlos Sainz, maka mereka berisiko tidak menurunkan Sainz saat balapan karena biaya yang sudah mepet dengan cost cap.

Tapi harusnya selama suku cadang aman, maka Sainz bisa… https://t.co/B5jH8xmsBG

— F1 Speed Indonesia (@f1speed_indo) November 24, 2023

Rebuilding the car without already allocated spare parts would mean an additional dent in the budget cap. The $135,000,000 restriction that F1 teams have to face comes with major repercussions, if exceeded. Hence, Vasseur was wary of the fact that as the season is coming to an end, the margins are really small in terms of the cost cap. Thus, Sainz may have to sit out to save any unnecessary expenditure in the books of the Scuderia.

If Sainz has to sit out, then, it means that the team from Maranello will have to field only one car. With only 4 points between Mercedes and Ferrari in the fight for P2 in the Constructors’ championship, this could become a pretty big handicap for them to seal the deal at Abu Dhabi. In the aftermath, Sainz had a pretty interesting debrief regarding the crash.

Ferrari setup changes to be blamed as per Carlos Sainz for FP2 crash

On an apparent hot-lap, Sainz was making his way to the revamped hairpin. But first, he had to navigate his way through the long right-hander out of turn 3. That being said, at the apex, the Spaniard seemingly lost the rear-end of his Ferrari and the SF-23 was flung into the path of the barriers.

Explaining the crash, Sainz said, “It’s obviously not been the Friday I wanted here in Abu Dhabi. We played a bit with the set up in FP1 and I was looking forward to FP2 after making some changes to the car. Unfortunately, I went over the big bump at the entry to turn 3 and I lost the car.”

Carlos Sainz: It’s obviously not been the Friday I wanted here in Abu Dhabi. We played a bit with the set up in FP1 and I was looking forward to FP2 after making some changes to the car. Unfortunately, I went over the big bump at the entry to turn 3 and I lost the car….

— Junaid #JB17 (@JunaidSamodien_) November 24, 2023

Daniel Ricciardo agreed with Sainz with respect to the setup direction the Scuderia had decided to take. He was quoted as saying, “It looked like Ferrari had driven the car too low. Lando [Norris] is [in Las Vegas] something very similar happened, or at least that’s what it looked like. But it’s strange.”

If the team can’t fix Sainz’s car, then it would surely bring his 2023 season to a premature end.