Sainz unhappy to miss first practice again

2017 Malaysian Grand Prix

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Carlos Sainz Jnr is frustrated he will not drive in the first practice session for the second weekend in a row in Malaysia.

Sainz will miss first practice as Sean Gelael will drive his car, as was the case in Singapore. Rookie Pierre Gasly has taken Daniil Kvyat’s place in the team’s other car this weekend.

“Let’s say I’m not the happiest man now knowing that I will miss for the second consecutive time free practice one,” said Sainz.

“Obviously in Singapore it turned out to be good because we still managed to get to Q3 and be fourth. But in a tougher weekend like Malaysia that I expect I will have some work to do in FP2 and FP3, hopefully like in Singapore we can do our best and come back strong like we did there.”

However Sainz admitted he was very pleased with his career-best result in Singapore after missing the first practice session.

“It was a great weekend all around,” he said. “First of all the news on Friday, then Q3 on Saturday, fourth place on Sunday. Probably one of my best weekends in Formula One.”

Sainz shrugged off a suggestion that the news of his impending move to Renault inspired him to produce his best drive yet. “It didn’t really affect me,” he said. “to be honest I did everything that I’ve done this year, it just happened to be my best result in Formula One which is quite nice to do it in the exact same weekend.”

“I’m very proud of it. We did celebrate a bit on Sunday but at the same time from Monday onwards I was watching videos of previous years in Malaysia and I turned the page pretty quickly.”

2017 Malaysian Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    22 comments on “Sainz unhappy to miss first practice again”

    1. Given that he’s moving to Renault and how Red Bull move driver’s around, he’s probably lucky if he doesn’t get bumped for more than just first practice. I guess it will mainly depend on the constructor’s championship points situation – it’s quite right at the moment.

      1. Quite tight at the moment.

    2. You don’t have to look far to realise that it could be a lot worse, Carlos!

    3. I understand his sentiment. Not being in the car in any case in bad: having to hand it over to an absolutely awful driver is worse.

      1. Yep, this is my thought. Gelael has 17 points in F2, only 3 drivers are below him who have done every round. And he’s managed to pay his way to an F1 practise. Stupid

        1. His only career wins came in obscure entry level Asia series. He managed I think 2 podiums in British F3 across 2 seasons, he is truly ‘sub optimal’.

          1. How did he get his Superlicence?

            1. Through mileage alone i’d imagine.

            2. Wait does he got super licence yet? Don’t think he have one at the moment

            3. Don’t need one for FP

            4. @hahostolze Thanks, I thought all the drivers did.

            5. @hahostolze

              Don’t need one for FP

              Akshually …
              … you do need a super licence to be allowed to drive in Free Practice. There’s a dedicated FP Super Licence with similar, but more relaxed, criteria. Crucially, there’s a paragraph that enables the competent National Association to grant such a licence on the basis of subjective criteria.

      2. @hahostolze, following on from his performance in the mid-season test at the Hungaroring, GT-Racer mentioned that, having spoken to Toro Rosso’s engineers in private, they told him that the technical feedback that they got from Gelael turned out to be surprisingly good.

        He might not be a great race driver, but if that information is correct, then it would suggest that Gelael might be a surprisingly decent development driver (GT-Racer, if you are reading this, I would be interested to know where they thought that Gelael stood in relation to Kvyat and Sainz).

        1. So he’s the next Luca Badoer then.

    4. The KFC Kid strikes again. 😴

    5. Has a team ever entered a practice session with 2 less experienced/practiced drivers?

      1. True but has a team ever existed where the owners care less about it’s results in races?

      2. HRT in the 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix springs to mind:

        https://www.racefans.net/2010/03/12/sutil-heads-bahrain-free-practice-one/

        Poor Chandhok still didn’t have much experience by the time the race started. But that didn’t matter as neither of them qualified!

        1. They did qualify didn’t they? I think the 107% rule wasn’t reintroduced until 2011, presumably as a response to HRT starting that race so badly underprepared.

    6. I would love to know how much they paid for Sean’s 4 FP1 this year.

      1. Around a million I would say…

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