WATCH: Terrifying Scenes As Sainz Drives Over A Loose Manhole Cover In Las Vegas

Friday, 17 November 2023 at 09:43

Updated at Friday, 17 November 2023 at 09:45

Carlos Sainz had a very unpleasant experience during Free Practice 1 at the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix when he drove over a loose manhole cover.

The 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix has been highly anticipated, as everyone wanted to see how F1 would manage to organize the race. Some were very skeptical about it, while others supported the race.

One thing was clear, the biggest challenge will be the Las Vegas Strip Circuit, as it is a temporary street circuit, which was being built just for the Grand Prix, and now we know the answer to how the challenge was handled.

The first Free Practice session started as expected around 8:30 PM local time, but its duration was cut short, and quite significantly. After only around nine minutes, a very unfortunate incident happened.

Scuderia Ferrari's Carlos Sainz, who is the only driver that beat Red Bull this year to a victory, drover over a loose manhole cover. That immediately brought the red flags and stopped the session, which was then not resumed.

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The Spanish driver's car has sustained significant damage, and the whole incident looked very terrifying, as Sainz probably didn't expect to hit a loose cover while going at ridiculous speed.

As a result, Car 55 will need to undergo serious reparations to fix the Survival cell, Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), Energy Store (ES), and directly associated Control Electronics (CE), which were reported as changed parts on the car by FIA.

But Sainz wasn't the only driver who had an unpleasant experience, as Alpine's Esteban Ocon should have experienced the same, but in his case, only a change of the Survival cell will be necessary.

As a result of the incident, the red-flagged session did not continue, and also the Free Practice 2 session, which was supposed to start at midnight local time, was postponed by two hours to 2:00 AM, and extended to a 90-minute session.