Poor Carlos Sainz Jr. Not only did he whack into the pit entry cone as he pulled into the pits, but he locked up his tires trying to slow down down to pit lane speed in time. This looked like the worst last minute pit call ever, but the upside is that the pit entry cone is worth ten imaginary bonus points!
Actually, this is a bit more like hitting a ghost in Pac-Man: not something you want to do.
In addition to ten imaginary bonus points, Sainz gets a new front wing! (Oops.)
Unfortunately, Nintendo hasn’t found a way to superimpose stars and coins onto the track for additional imaginary bonus points that cause less damage, and like Whose Line Is It Anyway, the points don’t matter.
Worse yet, the hit left quite a bit of debris on the pit straight. Why isn’t this getting picked up? I know everyone hates yellows, but c’mon.
Update: What happened, exactly? Scuderia Toro Rosso was trying to use a pit stop to jump Carlos Sainz Jr. ahead of Pastor Maldonado, who Sainz was having trouble passing.
“The team told me to do the opposite to Maldonado, and it looked like he was going to pit so I was meant to stay out on track,” Sainz told F1 Fanatic. “But he suddenly continued on track and I was so aggressive on the turn into the pit entry that I hit the bollard and damaged my front wing.”
Sainz told F1 Fanatic that taking out the pit entry cone in the process was a “rookie error.”
Contact the author at stef.schrader@jalopnik.com.