Eight minutes into the first free practice session for the first race weekend on the streets of Las Vegas, Sainz suffered major damage to the chassis, floor and power unit of his Ferrari after tearing through a concrete manhole cover frame on the legendary strip.
In a separate incident, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon also suffered significant damage, requiring chassis replacement.
The Sainz incident caused a stir and the meeting was soon abandoned as track workers had to check every manhole cover on the 6.2km stretch of road. Instead, there was discussion about extending FP2 on Thursday evening.
When asked about the damage to Sainz’s car, team boss Vasseur said: “The situation is that we have completely damaged the monocoque, the engine and the battery. And I think that’s just unacceptable.”
“We had a very difficult race. This will cost us a fortune. We screwed up the session for Carlos. We definitely won’t take part in FP2, we have to change the chassis.”
“Okay, the show is the show and everything is going well, but I think it is simply unacceptable for Formula 1 today.”
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
Carlos Sainz’s car, Ferrari SF-23, is taken away after hitting a drain cover
The incident caused significant disruption to the first day of racing, but could have ended much worse as it occurred on the fastest part of the circuit, a 1.9km flat-out race on the Strip.
Initial investigations by Ferrari revealed that Sainz’s seat had also been damaged by the impact.
Asked if he felt Formula One had its priorities straight after announcing its glamorous return to Las Vegas, only to be plagued by teething problems related to the safety of the actual circuit, Vasseur wanted both topics keep separate.
“We don’t have to mix everything. I think the show is great and I’m very happy with Liberty.” [Media] did around the race. And I think it’s a big step forward for Formula 1,” he replied.
“We have to separate the show and the sporting side, and the show is great. But just because we do that doesn’t mean we have to do the job on the sporting side too.”
McLaren team principal Zak Brown also felt it was unfair to claim the series had cut corners to try and make the event take place in a compressed time frame.
“I think every time there is an incident, we have to resolve it first,” he added. “And then you look back and ask, ‘How did it happen?’, whether that’s a problem with the track or a problem with your car or whatever the case may be.”
“I think it would be unfair and hasty to judge that corners were cut. This has happened before.”
“I don’t think it’s because they didn’t make an effort or cut corners. It’s just because they were wrong somehow.”
“Right now we just need to focus on fixing the problem. I’m sure it was a technical issue that will be resolved.”
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