Ferrari seeking Sainz damage compensation with "private discussion" confirmed

Sainz’s Ferrari was badly damaged when he struck a loose manhole cover, an incident which caused Thursday’s opening practice session to be cancelled after just eight minutes. 

Ferrari were forced to change the chassis, power unit and battery on Sainz’s SF-23, triggering an automatic 10-place grid drop for the Spaniard. 

Team principal Fred Vasseur confirmed after the Las Vegas Grand Prix that Ferrari are seeking a settlement with the event’s stakeholders. 

"This will be a private discussion that I will have with the stakeholders of this event,” Vasseur said. 

"There is no provision into the budget or cost cap, for excluding the crashes. For sure you have a lot of extra costs. The loom was damaged, the gearbox was damaged, the battery was damaged, the engine is dead.

"We have a lot of consequences on the financial side, on the sporting side, and even on the stock of spare parts, and on the budget side for sure it's not an easy one.”

Sainz was left angered and in “disbelief” after Ferrari’s request to change the damaged components on his car without incurring a penalty was denied by the FIA. 

“I think it was not a very fair decision due to the circumstance. I think that it was very harsh for Carlos, very harsh for the team,” Vasseur added. 

“It’s not an easy one because that but it’s not an easy one to give a set of tyres or to give an engine because it’s a gain of performance. But battery, there is no performance in the battery.

“Considering that we miss FP1, that we had a couple of millions of damage, that we had the mechanics worked like hell to come back. And so I think it was not too stupid to consider the case of force majeure.”

Asked how easy it will be to adjust the budget cap, Vasseur replied: “You can see the pros and the cons of this is that we won’t be able to rebuild everything at all because the next one [race] is next week. No way to build up a new monocoque for example.

“But it’s true also that if we have to adjust the budget cap, our whole cost, at least between now and the end of the season, we don’t have so much room to play with, or we miss Abu Dhabi.”