Torque spike or ‘black line’? Teams’ competing explanations for Sainz’s crash

Williams is looking into whether Carlos Sainz Jnr’s car contributed to the crash which put him out of the Australian Grand Prix.

However at least one of their rivals believe he simply lost control of his car on a black painted line at the final corner, which could have been difficult to see.

Sainz crashed out at the end of the first racing lap in damp conditions at Albert Park. His FW47 snapped around as he approached turn 14 and hit a barrier.

Team principal James Vowles said they will look into the role played by Sainz’s up-shift as he approached the corner.

“We need to look into it more,” said Vowles in a video released by the team. “It was just a simple up-shift on a very difficult point in time on a slippery track that seemed to bring the car around with a little bit more power or torque than we expected.

“Now, it’s fine margins, but we need to make sure that as a team we’re providing stable platforms to all of our drivers in all circumstances.”

However Sainz’s former team Ferrari had another theory for the crash. They believe he was caught out by a lack of grip on a black painted line on the track surface at the corner. The team passed that information on to Charles Leclerc during the race to help him avoid the same mistake.

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“Carlos spun in turn 14 on the black line,” Leclerc’s race engineer Bryan Bozzi told him while he circulated behind the Safety Car as Sainz’s Williams was cleared away. “At the turn-in of turn 14 there is a black line and he spun on the black line.”

“So the black line is the one a metre and a half or two metres on the outside of the track, right?” Leclerc asked as he passed the crash scene. “If you take the limit of the track on the left it’s two metres more inside than that and it’s a big black line, right, at the last corner?”

“Yes, it’s about two metres from the left-hand side of the track, just before you’re turning into 14,” Bozzi told him. “So yeah, it could be that one.”

Lewis Hamilton’s race engineer Ricardo Adami told him: “Avoid the black paint line inside 14. That’s why Sainz spun. Avoid the black paint.”

Sainz believes there was a “combination of factors” behind his error. “We managed to spot it on the data and see exactly what happened and what caused the situation,” he said.

“Obviously it’s not the way you want to start the year and a bit of an unfortunate situation. But we move on, not the first race we wanted, but at the same time I’m quick, I feel comfortable in the car and now we need to get the year started.”

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