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Carlos Sainz claims an intense recovery program helped him to be ready for the 2024 Australian GP. Speaking in the post-race press conference after the race, the Spanish driver explained that his recovery involved dedicating 24 hours every day to bounce back from his appendicitis surgery.
Carlos Sainz was hailed as a hero for winning the Australian GP approximately ten days after his surgery and for his swift recovery. The Spanish driver claims he used hyperbaric chambers, an oxygen therapy chamber used for healing surgical wounds.
He dedicated 24 hours every day towards his recovery and used an Indiba machine which is a electromagnetic machine to accelerate the recovery and repair of scar tissue. The 29-year-old reveals that his entire routine was dedicated to being ready to race in Melbourne.
Asked about the details of his recovery process, Carlos Sainz said:
“Yeah, I just, as soon as I got my appendix removed, I went on the internet and started talking with professionals and said, ‘OK, what helps to speed up recovery?’ And obviously from that point onwards, I started doing all the sort of things that you can do to speed up recovery, the wounds, the scar tissue, what you can help to be faster on that, talking to other athletes, talking to other doctors in Spain, internationally. And then I put together a plan with my team.”
“The reason why athletes recover faster is because you can dedicate 24 hours per day for seven days to recovery. And that's exactly what I did. I started going to hyperbaric chambers twice a day for one hour, taking an Indiba machine, that is electromagnetic thing for the wounds. I was programming my time in bed, my time to go for a walk, my time to eat, the kind of food that you have to recover. Just everything is centered around recovery to try to be ready for Australia.”
Carlos Sainz did not expect to recover in time for the Australian GP
Carlos Sainz revealed that before he was about to fly to Melbourne, he was still in bed and unsure of his recovery from the appendicitis surgery. He reckons he started feeling better after landing in Australia.
The Spaniard was advised by Alex Albon that the second week of recovery would be better. The Williams driver was diagnosed with appendicitis and went through surgery in 2022. He was replaced by then Mercedes reserve driver Nyck De Vries. He claimed to have anaesthetic complications and missed the Italian GP.
Describing the recovery period after appendicitis, Carlos Sainz said (via the post-race press conference):
“Now, you ask me, nine days ago, when I was about to catch the flight to come to Australia, I was still in bed. Barely I could use my abdominal to move. And I was like, this is not going to happen. But I took the flight, and suddenly when I landed in Australia, the feeling was a lot better.
"And every 24 hours, I was making a lot more progress than the first seven days, which is actually what all the doctors and all the professional people told me. Don't worry, because the second week, every day is going to improve a lot more than the first week. And even Alex Albon told me this, I remember. So it just followed more or less what everyone told me and put together a good plan.”
Claiming the third race victory of his career straight after surgery, Carlos Sainz has become the heroic tale of the 2024 season. The Ferrari driver has made his place on the driver market impressing the likes of both Christian Horner and Toto Wolff. However, the driver is being linked with the Red Bull seat, a camp he left after 2015. According to speculation, he is now one of the top prospects of the current driver market.
