It is often taken for granted that racing drivers can do things like that, and after all, it’s only a couple of years since Alex Albon performed a similar feat, returning in Singapore after missing the Italian GP following an appendix removal.
Albon, however, had two free weekends between races, so what Sainz is doing this weekend should not be underestimated.
Melbourne on Thursday was the first opportunity for the Spaniard to fully explain how his Jeddah weekend unfolded.
He didn’t feel well on Wednesday, heading back to his hotel early and missing media activities. And yet on Thursday he somehow managed to complete 50 laps across the two practice sessions, even taking seventh place in FP2.
“At the time it was honestly very difficult to know it was appendicitis,” he explained. “What I know is on Wednesday I started to feel really bad in the paddock and I got the typical symptoms of food poisoning. I don’t think I need to go into details of what that is!
“I got a very high fever also. And I spent Thursday also with those symptoms, but obviously with medication. When I was jumping in the car, I was feeling a lot better, because I was getting the medication.
“But then after those two sessions, I realised I cannot keep going like this for the whole weekend. So if I’m not improving, I’ll go to the hospital.
“I didn’t improve, and the morning of the Friday, which was qualifying day, I went to the hospital and I got diagnosed with appendicitis, which was not easy to diagnose, because my analysis and the test that they were doing, it was not clear.
“So I didn’t have the typical symptoms of appendicitis. But they were pretty convinced it could be, and I got the surgery done.
“And it was a great job from the doctors because as soon as I got it removed, I felt back to normal, back to better, obviously with surgery, and I could start focusing on recovering.”
Carlos Sainz, Scuderia Ferrari
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images
Sainz flew back to Europe on the Sunday after the race to begin his recuperation, the sole target being to get on the plane to Australia and be ready to drive the car in FP1.
He was not able to do his regular training, and it was also decided not to travel to Maranello for sim running in order to focus all his energies on his recovery. The recuperation wasn’t as easy as he may have made it look.
“Every day I’m feeling obviously a lot better,” he said. “Now, every 24 hours that I do, I do a lot of…
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