- First Barcelona Test - Day Four
Sainz blames high wind for test-ending accident
Toro Rosso rookie Carlos Sainz Jr blamed high winds for the crash he suffered late on Sunday in Barcelona and said it spoiled his most encouraging day of testing so far.
Sainz accumulated 88 laps before spinning off at Turn 3, snapping his front wing and prompting a brief visit to the Circuit de Catalunya's medical centre - only a few hours after fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso had been airlifted to hospital as a precautionary measure following an unusual crash. It had been windy for much of the day on Sunday and Sainz believes it was a key factor in his crash.
"The important thing is that I'm OK, obviously, as you can see," Sainz said. "But it was quite a hard accident on Turn 3. As you know today there were very high winds which didn't make life for the drivers very easy, very inconsistent winds, very high winds - this was not very easy for the drivers.
"Unfortunately in Turn 3 on one of my long runs with the hard tyre, which is not very grippy here, I lost the car in a snap of oversteer and couldn't correct it and went into the wall, damaging the car badly."
But the rookie insisted he will not dwell on the crash, adding: "These things happen and today it was my turn. You've seen many, many other good drivers and drivers in the past and it sometimes happens in testing and you just have to learn from it."
The crash was doubly frustrating for Sainz as he had felt it came at the end of his best day behind the wheel, not just in Barcelona but at any point this winter.
"The day had been to be honest the best day of testing until that point. I felt from the morning compared to day two a completely different car, I was a completely different driver with much more feeling under braking and much more feeling in all kinds of corners. Even with the high winds we had in the corners I felt pretty confident with the car and I managed to push, we managed to do some good short runs that gave me a lot of confidence.
"I think today has been a really, really important day to build up some confidence. Obviously it's not ideal to finish the day as it was, I'm the first one that is pissed off about it. Up until that point it had been a really good day that I had. I was starting to be myself with a lot of confidence in the car and starting to feel a proper driver in an F1 car."
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