Carlos Sainz has had a patchy phase in the 2022 season where he went off track multiple times getting stuck on the gravel trap.
In last week’s race in Monaco, Sainz drove brilliantly to finish P2. He might have even won the race were he not stuck behind Nicholas Latifi’s lapped Williams car. Prior to that however, he was having a torrid time behind the wheel of his F1-75.
The Ferrari driver had two consecutive DNFs in Australia and Imola, both of which came as a result of him being stuck in the gravel trap. In Melbourne, it came as a result of an overambitious lunge made by him to overtake a Haas. In Imola on the other hand, it was more due to a costly error made by McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo.
Sainz’s bad luck continued in his home race in Barcelona two weeks ago. This time, a gush of win led to him losing control of his car around turn four. He got sent off into the gravel trap yet again, but this time he recovered to some extent to finish fourth.
However, fans were perplexed to hear that the Spaniard had once again gone off track earlier this week. This time it wasn’t even in a race weekend, it was in Ferrari’s Pirelli wet-tyre testing.
F1 Twitter reacts to Carlos Sainz going into the gravel once again
It’s unknown as to why the Ferrari driver lost control of his car in Fiorano for the testing. They were testing the extreme wet tyres, and maybe it was pushing too hard which led to this.
Nevertheless, he has quite a few incidents like this throughout the course of the season. Ferrari fans are wondering if his mistakes are too costly, and may come to bite the team back towards the end of the season.
The next track on the F1 calendar is one where gravel traps won’t worry Sainz. Teams and drivers travel to Baku for the 2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, which takes place from 10-12 June.
