Watch Formula 1 Driver Carlos Sainz Jr. Drift A Karting Track
There’s car control…and then there’s this wizardry.
Carlos Sainz Jr., son of two-time World Rally Champion, followed not in his father's gravel-spraying footsteps, opting instead to race on the Grand Prix circuits of the world. Today, he is contracted by Red Bull Racing and is on a season-long loan to Renault Sport F1, where he is partnered by Nico Hülkenberg.
The prodigious son will start his eighth race with Renault next weekend, at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, run on the squeezing streets of the country's capital, Baku. For the occasion, he is practicing on the karting track of the Carlos Sainz Center in Las Rozas de Madrid, Spain.
What does practice involve? Lots of countersteer, and a stack of rear tires tall enough to rival the Burj Khalifa.
He will without a doubt be in need of the practice, as last year's Azerbaijan Grand Prix was among the most chaotic of races in the V6 era. Sainz may use the drifting practice to prevent a repeat of his first-corner spin in the 2017 race. Hülkenberg, his teammate, made a more consequential mistake by smashing his Renault into a wall when trying to take a slow corner too tight. Then-Renault driver Jolyon Palmer suffered an engine failure during the same race, completing a double retirement for the team.
While Sainz and his team's results for this year's Azerbaijan Grand Prix are poised to be less unpleasant than those the team endured last year, they are expected to be nowhere near the leading teams of Mercedes, Ferrari, and Red Bull Racing, despite supplying the latter third with engines. Renault may instead be kept company by a resurgent McLaren, whose drivers and MCL33 chassis are a close match for the R.S.18.