Carlos Sainz says Formula 1 must learn from the “properly scary” crash that occurred during a Safety Car restart at Mugello.
Sainz was eliminated from the race after he was involved in a collision with some of his rival drivers, caused by major speed differential on the start-finish straight.
Valtteri Bottas, the race leader, had not yet signalled the race restart out in front, while big gaps in the midfield caused some to get up to speed while others were still waiting to do so.
“[It was] properly scary,” Sainz said. “We’re doing 290, 300 km/h at that point, because everyone in front of me just thought that we were racing.
“Suddenly it looks like we were not racing anymore and everyone started braking again. By the time I saw everything it was just too late and it was a big crash. The main thing is we are all OK now.”
Sainz has called on F1 to make sure the situation doesn’t happened again in the future after suffering a similar scare at Brazil in 2019.
“It was similar to Brazil last year,” Sainz said. “It felt like at the back of the grid where I was everyone in front of me thought that the race was going.
“We were all flat out until someone realised the race was not on.
“Something definitely to look into because the speeds we are going at the main straights are very, very big so the crash I had could have been much worse if one car would have sideways on the main straight and I could have took him.
“It’s something to learn from here because it’s definitely not a nice feeling to do 280 km/h and suddenly find three cars in the middle of the straight just stopped.”
