Verstappen: “Sainth couldn’t feel his legs for a few seconds after the accident in Las Vegas”

The accident occurred when the Spaniard’s Ferrari SF-23, during the first free test phase on the Las Vegas asphalt, drove through the cover of a gutter, which came off seconds before another car passed through, damaging the floor and the entire drive unit of the car destroyed Italian car instantly turn into a fireball. In fact, the SF-23 ground crash even damaged Saint’s seat.

Although Scuderia director Fred Wasser described the incident as “unacceptable”. Formula 1″, The true impact of the accident was unknown – until Max Verstappen revealed in an interview on ViaPlay that Sainz could not feel his legs in the first moments after the accident.

In fact, Mercedes F1’s Toto Wolff also played down the impact of the accident, responding angrily to a journalist’s question “It was just a damn manhole cover.” and that it just happened in the free trials.

But Verstappen criticized the Austrian when he was asked about Wolff’s statements. While confirming the Mercedes F1 director’s view that problems with manhole covers are common on urban circuits, Max added “If it was one of his own cars, [ο Βολφ] he would speak differently. But I don’t expect anything else from him.

The Dutchman added that everyone in the team would be angry if something like that happened at Red Bull: “Naturally [θα ήμασταν], the whole car was destroyed! Carlos also said that he couldn’t feel his legs for a few seconds. The accident could have ended much worse.

The price of the damage to the Ferrari SF-23

Aside from the risks to the driver, the incident caused damage to Ferrari that will cost them “a small fortune,” Vasser said. An asset that the Frenchman says he will demand from the shareholders of Las Vegas GP – Liberty Media. “This is the subject of a private discussion that I will have with shareholders [του αγώνα]”he emphasized.

The Scuderia boss can rely on a ruling that already exists in 2017. At the time, organizers of the Malaysian GP paid compensation to the Haas team after damage to the car was caused by a gutter cover that had also come loose while driving past.

There is another cost consideration at Ferrari: it impacts the annual budget limit that applies to every team in the sport. Should Ferrari need around 1.5 to 2 million euros to cover the damage, this amount will be deducted from the team’s other plans for the development of the 2024 car.

In addition, the cost of transporting another replacement chassis from Maranello to Abu Dhabi for the final GP of the year in the next three days (November 24th-26th) was added to the team’s expenses.

Water explained: “The budget limit does not allow for the exclusion of accidents. And we certainly have a lot of additional costs: the floor is destroyed, the transmission is destroyed, the battery is destroyed, the engine is destroyed. We have a lot of financial and racing implications, even in terms of spare parts inventory, and for budget reasons it’s not easy.”

The Frenchman added that he would raise the issue of exempting such incidents from the budget limit and also revealed that stewards only stopped testing when Saint’s accident happened, with marshals waving yellow flags for the manhole cover being removed.

“We need to discuss the circumstances of the incident because it’s not just about the cover being taken off, but also about the fact that it took a minute from the yellow flag to the red flag.” said the Ferrari commander. “When they raise the yellow flags it means they saw something on the track. And it took a minute for them to show the red flag. I think that’s a long time. A piece of metal lay in a straight line [τα μονοθέσια] they came over with 340 km/h”.