Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz points fingers at rookie Oscar Piastri for causing Belgian Grand Prix crash

Carlos Sainz has blamed the inexperience of Oscar Piastri for leading to a crash in the first corner of the Belgian Grand Prix. The crash between the Ferrari and McLaren drivers led to their retirements from the race on Sunday afternoon.

The two drivers made contact at La Source, the first corner of the Spa-Francorchamps as they fought over fourth place. The Spanish driver, 27 was attempting to overtake Lewis Hamilton in third whilst the Australian newbie, 22 attempted to come up the inside of the corner.

After the collision the McLaren driver was forced to pull to the side of the track after only managing a few more corners. Sainz was able to continue for half the race before Ferrari made the decision to retire the car.

Sainz then took to social media following the race to point fingers at the rookie, as he tweeted: “Not what we wanted today. Racing incident, but Oscar was too optimistic. He was never side by side and that move has never really worked in Spa. Congrats to the team and Charles on an encouraging result. We’ll keep pushing after the break!”

In the press conference following the race, Carlos said: “I went to pass Lewis into turn one and I think I had the move pretty much done. And suddenly I received contact on my rear right from Oscar.

“I didn’t expect him to choose to be three into turn one and for him to be so much up the inside. My opinion, if you want to know - I’ve been racing at Spa for seven or eight years and everyone who has tried that move on the very inside has always generated an incident or a crash.

“So if you look back at the past starts here, that’s normally the case. Maybe a bit of an experience mistake, but that’s how it goes. I didn’t expect him there.

“I did, at one point, see that he was on the wall pretty much, but I was more focussed on my battle with Lewis and I didn’t miss the apex or anything. I went to attack Lewis and Oscar went to attack Lewis and me, which I think was a bit optimistic.”

Piastri has also admitted to being partially responsible for the collision, but said that he also felt Sainz could have done more to avoid contact. The first year F1 driver said: “I think from Carlos’ point of view, the move to the right surprised me a bit.

“Then for myself, I think from there I was quite limited, maybe I could have braked a bit later and been further alongside, but it’s very easy to say that with hindsight. I think once I was in that position it was quite hard to either go forward or go backwards, and I was kind of stuck. I tried to do the best I could from that position but there wasn’t much I could do.”

After being reviewed by the FIA, the governing body decided that there was no need for an investigation or penalty for either driver.