“A plastic bag was stuck…”: Carlos Sainz reveals a surprising reason behind his podium loss at Hungaroring

“A plastic bag was stuck…”: Carlos Sainz reveals a surprising reason behind his podium loss at Hungaroring

Carlos Sainz

Ferrari racer Carlos Sainz was having a brilliant run in the Hungarian Grand Prix but still, his hopes of winning a podium finish in the thirteenth round of this year’s Formula 1 Championship season were thwarted by–a plastic bag. The Spaniard had outqualified his teammate and bagged second position on the starting grid, and he was being favored by many F1 pundits as the potential Champion at Hungaroring.

But his fate had upsetting results in store for him as Sainz could not find the pace in his car to keep up against the charging Silver Arrows, and he also lost out to Max Verstappen‘s Red Bull, as the reigning World Champion claimed first place in the race.

While discussing what went wrong with Carlos Sainz’s race at Hungaroring, the Ferrari recruit said that the results might have been hampered by a plastic bag which was lodged on one side of his car. The #55 racer said that he never realized the plastic bag was there throughout the entire race, and only discovered it stuck to his F1-75 after he got out of the cockpit.

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Carlos’ miss at a podium place completed a disappointing day for Ferrari, as his teammate Charles Leclerc plummeted from the lead in the race to P6 as the Monegasque suffered at the hands of Ferrari’s flawed strategy.

Carlos Sainz reveals the reason why he missed out on podium finish at Hungaroring

Carlos Sainz
Carlos Sainz

Carlos Sainz started the Hungarian Grand Prix from P2, and there was one time when he took the lead of the race. The racer was called into the pits and he did suffer a slow pitstop, but he recovered from it and the Tifosis were all rooting for him to bring home a podium finish. But at the end of the race, Mercedes landed a double podium by taking full advantage of Ferrari’s flaws and Sainz was left in P4, two seconds behind George Russell, who claimed the third spot in the race.

Speaking of how Carlos Sainz had a botched-up race in Hungary, the Spaniard said, “I just discovered when I got out of the car that there was a plastic bag stuck in the side of the car, and I don’t know if that plastic bag was costing me downforce because it was quite big.”

While nobody can account for when the orange plastic bag got stuck to Carlos’ car, the theory is that it lodged at the side of his F1-75 after his second pitstop, or else one of the Ferrari mechanics would have seen it and removed it. In any case, it cannot be determined if the plastic bag was the reason behind the heavy downforce that slowed Carlos Sainz down, but the Spaniard thinks that is a plausible explanation.