False injury reports on social media ‘clickbait by amateur journalists’ – Sainz

Carlos Sainz Jnr said he feels “totally fine” ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix and poured scorn on reports which emerged on social media claiming he’d been injured in a football match.

The Ferrari driver participated in a charity football match in AS Monaco’s ground Stade Louis II yesterday. At one point he was pictured receiving treatment to his leg, leading some to claim he had suffered an injury which threatened his participation in this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix.

Sainz told media in Monaco today he felt “totally fine” and there was never any doubt over his ability to race this weekend.

“I don’t know if it’s social media nowadays or just people trying to get a bit of clickbait,” he said. “Amateur journalism I call it, in two or three different ways.

“But it’s just useless and unnecessary to create a headline that has no base or no information.”

The Ferrari driver said he increasingly comes across lurid, unverified stories appear about himself. “It’s recently a bit more with social media, TikTok,” he said.

“[They] really try and bring up some news to get some extra views and extra clickbait and they just try and get, without any information, a prediction of what’s going to happen on Sunday.”

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Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur today denied another story relating to his team. Reports earlier this week claimed the team was seeking to sign Lewis Hamilton as a replacement for either Sainz or his team mate Charles Leclerc.

Sainz said he paid no attention to those reports either. “I know at this time of the year always these kind of rumours starts to happen,” he said. “It’s silly season time.

“A week and half ago I was going to Audi, one week ago Charles was going to Mercedes. Now Lewis is coming to Ferrari. It’s the story of our lives when it comes to this time of the year. I’ve been long enough in F1, more than eight years, to know that this is that time of the year.”

However he admitted he might have paid more attention to the Hamilton reports earlier in his career.

“Back in the day you would have read the media a lot more, try and find out a lot more. Now I prefer to focus on my Monaco weekend and just don’t care about what the others are saying or doing, focus on myself, it’s always worked out fine for me in the past.”

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