Ferrari “quite optimistic” of Carlos Sainz’s return for Australian GP

Ferrari F1 team principal Frederic Vasseur is “quite optimistic” that Carlos Sainz will be able to recover in time to drive at the Australian Grand Prix later this month.

Sainz sat out of last weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after he was diagnosed with appendicitis.

The Spaniard was forced to undergo surgery and thus was replaced by Ferrari junior driver Oliver Bearman, who performed spectacularly on his F1 debut.

Even though he was still recovering, Sainz was in the F1 paddock on Saturday, overseeing affairs from the Ferrari garage.

After the race in Saudi Arabia, Vasseur was asked about Sainz’s possible return for Australia.

“This I don't know, honestly,” Sainz said. “The recovery so far is amazing, the fact he was able to come today to be with the team is a very good sign, and a very good support for us.

“Now, he will fly back with me tomorrow [Sunday] and he will have one week of complete rest, and we will take a decision on when he has to fly to Melbourne in one week's time. But I'm quite optimistic.”

Sainz was forced to miss media day in Jeddah through illness but returned to the cockpit of the SF-24 on Thursday for practice.

Vasseur lauded Sainz for his commitment even though he was “completely destroyed”.

“I think it's a characteristic of the family!  I'm not strong enough to extract Carlos from the car,” he added. “When he came on Thursday morning, he didn't feel well, 'Let me try to do some laps,' and he did the full session. The afternoon, it was exactly the same.

“Already, at this stage, it was amazing for me, because I found out after the session he was completely destroyed. If you look at the result of FP1 and FP2, he had a very decent pace, and he was even able to do long stints, and this was mega.

“But now let's be focused on the future for Carlos. The most important thing is not to push today, it's to recover and to recover properly. I don't want to rush, but he's an adult, and he'll take the right decision.”