Sainz Describes What He Did Right After He Was Discharged From Hospital

Sunday, 31 March 2024 at 13:30

In an interview following the 2024 Australian Grand Prix weekend, Carlos Sainz described what happened right after his surgery on Friday.

The Spanish Ferrari driver didn't feel well ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and missed the media day on Wednesday ahead of race weekend.

It wasn't obvious what was going on, but he wasn't expected to leave the race. However, a few hours ahead of the FP3 session, it was discovered that the 29-year-old suffered appendicitis and would have to undergo urgent surgery.

"As soon as I got it [his appendix] removed, I felt back to normal, and I could start focusing on recovering."

While he missed out on the qualifying session on Friday, as soon as he got discharged from the hospital the next day (Saturday), he headed to the paddock into the Ferrari garage.

Read also

Verstappen Confirms Uncertainty Around His Exit In Red Bull Is Over

Then, once the race started, Sainz reportedly actively helped his substitute, Ollie Bearman, as he fed his engineer valuable information that helped the 18-year-old improve in real-time.

"The doctors recommended me to go for a walk after the operation, and I said to them, rather than walking in my hotel room, I walk into the paddock, watch the race with my engineers and learn something, or help my engineers with anything I can help."

Even Bearman himself thanked Sainz after the race and credited the Spaniard with "fantastic" help, which aided in speeding up his learning process inside the car.

After the race finished, Sainz went straight to recovery, focusing all his efforts on ensuring he would be fit enough to participate in the next race, which, fortunately for him, was at least two weeks later.

Two weeks was still an incredibly short period of time for recovery, but the 29-year-old pushed through, made it to the race, and, as we now know, managed to win it. Describing how it feels to race without the appendix, he said:

"Just with the G-Force, everything in the inside just feels like it's moving more than normal and you need some confidence to brace the core and the body as you used to do before, but you get used to it. There is no pain."