SAINZ WOULD LIKE SOCHI TURN 2 TO DISAPPEAR IN THE FUTURE

Carlos Sainz Jr’s solemn apology after crunching his McLaren into the wall at the rejoin lane told you everything you needed to know about how silly a misjudgement it was.

The Turn 2 run-off is always a menace and there must be better ways to deal with it, but this is the solution for now and the drivers know how it works: charging into it as Sainz did, off-line, was foolish.

Sainz has had an unlucky year but generally been a very strong performer. His misery at Sochi was entirely self-inflicted.

That, combined with Lando Norris’s troubled first lap, condemned McLaren to a point-less grand prix that has eradicated its advantage in the constructors’ championship’s third-place fight after a better day for rivals Renault and Racing Point.

The rules throughout the weekend have stipulated that drivers who run wide at Turn 2 must rejoin via a chicane outlined by polystyrene blocks, which feeds them into Turn 3.

Sainz ran wide after Lance Stroll attempted to overtake him on the inside of Turn 2, which required him to take to the run-off area.

However in his attempt to return to the circuit the McLaren driver miscalculated his speed when re-joining and clipped the wall.

“It was a very poor start for everyone starting on the right-hand side of the grid,” Sainz reflected.

“By the time we got to Turn 2 we were still in a good position fighting in the braking zone.

“At the time I was about to hit the apex at Turn 2, I thought I had someone on the inside and I might have jumped over the big kerbs.

“At that point, when I was going to negotiate the chicane, but I clearly had too much speed. The angle was really, really narrow to go around and I just misjudged my entry speed.”

Sainz criticised the design of the narrow Turn 2 at the Sochi Autodrom and the “strange lines” it forces drivers to take in order to filter back in if they run off the circuit.

“I think that corner is not very well designed,” Sainz commented.

“It’s forcing drivers to take very strange lines, very strange incidents like five second penalties we’re given if we don’t negotiate that chicane.

“It is frustrating, but at the same time there are always going to be some mistakes during the year.

“Today was my mistake and I apologise to the team for it. Looking forward now to the Nurburgring to try and redeem myself a bit.”

SAINZ WOULD LIKE SOCHI TURN 2 TO DISAPPEAR IN THE FUTURE SAINZ WOULD LIKE SOCHI TURN 2 TO DISAPPEAR IN THE FUTURE

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