Spanish Formula 1 driver Carlos Sainz opened up about his challenging 2024 season on the High Performance podcast, describing it as a "character-building year."
Photo: Simon Galloway
Carlos Sainz found out before the start of last season that he would be replaced at Ferrari by Lewis Hamilton starting this year. He finished third on the podium in the first race of the season, but was soon sidelined by a bout of appendicitis.
"I went to Jeddah and then my appendix decided it was the right time in my career to show up. I had to miss that race.
"It's like life is hitting me hard for some reason in 2024. For some reason they've decided this is my character-building year and I took it a bit like that."
"Like someone up there has decided this is the year to give me a bit of a hard time. I need to fight back, you know. And I remember having the appendix surgery and having to watch the race in the box with the team. I decided to walk into the paddock that day still limping."
Carlos was replaced at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix by Oliver Bearman, who was unable to take part in the Formula 2 weekend due to his promotion to Ferrari as Carlos’s stand-in.
"I went to actually help Ollie. I went to a race to sit down with my engineers and help Ollie to try and help the team. And I said, 'You guys decided I cannot continue with this thing, but I'm going to show you my worth apart from just driving fast cars and driving as fast as I can.' And I said, 'What can I do?'
"And I actually went to the paddock that day and said: I'm going to use this as an opportunity to see how my engineers communicate with Ollie, what kind of screens they're seeing, how are they saying things, and I'm actually going to be a third engineer for them to maybe learn what if I was only in the car, what kind of information I would need to get in this exact moment."
Photo: Mark Sutton
Two weeks after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Carlos returned to the Formula 1 cockpit in Australia, where he won the race.
“It’s tough, but it’s character-building, as I said. And I came back after that appendix surgery and won that race. And I think I won it because of that attitude - staying positive.
"Because it would have been so easy to become negative and to curse the year, to curse the moment, and to curse life about how bad it's treating you and remain negative. And I think that positivity is what helped me win the race on the comeback."
Carlos finished the season fifth in the championship with 290 points and two victories. At the end of the season, his journey with the Italian team came to an end, and he moved to Williams Racing, where he is currently competing.