Ferrari team boss Frdric Vasseur will talk to the organizers of the Las Vegas GP. After Sainz’s crash during the first practice session, the car had to be seriously rebuilt, which entailed significant costs. Ferrari now wants to obtain compensation as this is for them force majeur was.
When Sainz drove over a manhole cover in the first practice session and it came loose and caused a lot of damage, Ferrari suddenly found itself with a lot of work to do on Sainz’s car, but also with a financial hangover.
Frdric Vasseur and Ferrari will discuss this with the organizers, which in this case are Formula 1 and Liberty Media themselves.
“This will be a private conversation that I will have with the stakeholders,” Vasseur said.
Vasseur stressed that the crash has also had an impact on Ferrari’s budget limits, as extra costs have been incurred due to the need to fly an extra spare chassis from Italy to Abu Dhabi this weekend, as they started work in Maranello immediately after the accident the preparation for this.
“We are now faced with many consequences on the financial side, on the sporting side and even on the stock of spare parts. It is certainly not easy on the budgetary side either.”
Vasseur explains that a yellow flag was already shown in the area of the manhole cover in question because the marshals had already seen that something was loose on the track, only when Sainz drove over the cover was a red flag raised.
There was 1 minute between the showing of the yellow flag and then the red flag, Vasseur explains. I think this is actually too long, we were also not given a reason why a yellow flag was shown, they didn’t say anything at all.
We are going to discuss these circumstances. The yellow flag was shown in a zone where we reach speeds of up to 340 kilometers per hour. So something was seen, but it should never take a minute before the follow-up decision is made as this can lead to dangerous circumstances. Look at Esteban Ocon, even he damaged his car after the red flag had already been shown and he was on his way to the pits.
Written by Vincent Bogaerts