Carlos Sainz has been ruled out of this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Ferrari have confirmed. The Spaniard was taken ill during the media day on Wednesday as the Maranello squad confirmed he had returned to the hotel. Fighting the nausea, Sainz took his seat for free practice one and two though he admitted the lack of pace form his side of the garage was more due to him rather than the car.
Ferrari have now stated Carlos has been diagnosed with appendicitis and will require urgent surgery. It appears he will be replaced by the team’s protege, British driver Oliver Bearman who had qualified hi F2 car on pole position yesterday.
Sainz diagnosed with appendicitis
“Carlos Sainz has been diagnosed with appendicitis and will require surgery,” said a Ferrari spokesperson. “As from FP3 and for the rest of this weekend, he will be replaced by reserve driver Oliver Bearman. Oliver will therefore take no further part in this round of the F2 Championship.
“The Ferrari family wishes Carlos a speedy recovery.”
Carlos Sainz was the highest placed non red Bull driver at the Formula One season opener in Bahrain last week. His third place marked the improvement Ferrari have made after coming third behind Mercedes in last season’s constructors’ championship.
The Spaniard has been dumped by Ferrari at the end of this year following the company’s chairman – John Elkan – taking the executive decision above Fred Vasseur’s head to recruit Lewis Hamilton.
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Prema F2 startling turnaround
Prema began the F2 season in Bahrain with a lacklustre performance but turned around the setup of their spec car was much improved during practice and qualifying in Saudi Arabia. Mercedes Max Verstappen 2.0 future hope, Kimi Antonelli who Toto Wolff hinted may replace Lewis Hamilton when the British driver leaves to take up his new drive at Ferrari next season.
“What an opportunity, Ollie!” Prema said in a team statement. “While we are sad to withdraw the #3 car that was starting from pole at Jeddah, we are delighted to see Ollie make his F1 debut in a Ferrari!”
Not only did Oliver Bearman enjoy the turnaround in Prema’s fortunes with his pole position, but team mate Antonelli was lightening quick claiming P6 which of course will see him start the Sprint now in P5.
Oliver has stolen the headline waiting for Lewis Hamilton at the season opener in Australia next year, because it will be Bearman who is set to be the first British driver to step into a Ferrari F1 car for over a quarter of a century.
Sainz misdiagnosed
Carlos spoke to the assembled media after his two practice sessions on Thursday stating: “I’ve had a very rough last 24 hours I’m honest, so yes [I was] happy to do this Thursday and complete the run plan but its for sure been one of my toughest days in a Fomrula One car with such a demanding high G-Force [track] and having a stomach bug.
“It is not ideal, but hopefully for tomorrow it will be better – and for Sunday hopefully I’m 200%. But I need some rest now.
When asked how it felt stepping into the car in the blistering heat of the Saudi desert weather Carlos sighed, replying “Not good. I must say that it was a struggle and from FP1 all the way to FP2 – especially the long runs when you do continuous laps and the stomach doesn’t really like it.
“But at least I got a first feeling for the car even if I couldn’t push it to the absolute limit – I got a first good feeling gave my engineer feedback and this will give me a decent base to work on tomorrow, when I can feel better.”
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Bearman lucky break
Of course it transpires the diagnosis of a stomach complaint has now been proven incorrect and the scenario now has an element of deja vu where Alex Albon was taken ill in Monza 2022 and Nyck de Vries stepped in delivering both a top ten start position and points in his rookie race.
Oliver Bearman has been somewhat in the shadow of his rookie team mate Kimi Antonelli given the comments made by Toto Wolff when Hamilton dropped the bombshell he was leaving Mercedes early. The column inches have all been about Kimi who is believed to have such talent, Mercedes skipped F3 moving him into F2 directly from a junior European region racing category.
The prima driver though is not stepping into a Williams aside Nyck de Vries, but the car that claimed the third step on the podium last time out in Bahrain, and has a real chance to shine attracting attention for one of the thirteen seats of F1 drivers out of contract at the end of this year.
The last driver who stepped into a debut F1 drive for the Scuderia was Auturo Merzario at the 1972 British GP. He qualified in P9, 1.5 secondsbehivnd team mate Jacky Ickx who was on pole. Merxario finished in P6 claiming the then final points paying position.
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Sainz hopes to dominate team mate dashed
Given his ejection from Maranello, Carlos Sainz is desperate to finish ahead of his team mate this year. In his four year tenure in Maranello he will have levelled the score of who scored the most points in a season to 2-2. Carlos was unfortunate last year not to finish the season ahead of Leclerc because at the penultimate race weekend in Las Vegas, where he looked the quicker Ferrari driver, he was hit with a ten place grid penalty following a man hole cover coming lose and partially destroying his car.
Then in Abu Dhabi Carlos Ferrari failed again causing him to crash heavily in practice and need a complete rebuild. With the lost track time and a faulty rebuild, Sainz was unable to make it out of the first qualifying session and started the Grand Prix from the lowly slot of P16. This meant he failed to score points and his lead over team mate Leclerc which had been 22 points before the final two rounds became a 6 point deficit in favour of Charles Leclerc.
Following his podium in Bahrain last week, and his comments would have been warmly greeted by Lewis Hamilton who will be stepping into his car for 2025. “It’s a bit of a relief because the last race where I was attacking was Austria and we’re talking about 13, 14 races ago,” he told assembled media. “And then the rest of the races last year you just had to manage, look in the mirrors, control your pace. And there were very little opportunities to go and overtake people.”
Clearly Ferrari have made a huge step forward this year from their 2023 challenger which ate tyres meaning the drivers could not always drive flat out.
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