"Oscar was too optimistic": Carlos Sainz blames Oscar Piastri for his DNF in Belgium

Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz blamed Oscar Piastri for their collision on Lap 1 at the 2023 Belgian GP on Sunday, calling the McLaren driver 'too optimistic'.

The duo, starting from P4 and P5, made a good start and were vying to make early position gains on turn one like any other race. However, the Spanish driver cut across after he tried to take third place away from Lewis Hamilton but did not see the Aussie on the kerb heading into turn one.

The slight contact damaged the sidepod of Carlos Sainz while breaking the suspension of Piastri. After the race, Carlos Sainz took to his social media to give his thoughts on the incident and said:

"Not what we wanted today. Racing incident, but Oscar was too optimistic. He was never side by side and that move has never really worked in Spa. Congrats to the team and Charles on an encouraging result. We’ll keep pushing after the break!"

While speaking with F1.com, Oscar Piastri saw the incident differently and added:

"A disappointing end to the weekend. I had my nose in there at Turn One and got a bit caught out with Carlos darting to the inside. My nose was in there, I couldn’t get out of that one, so a shame to have my race over so early."

"It’s still been a positive weekend though and all in all, I think we’ve had some good learning on track so we can still be confident for the rest of the year."

Ferrari team boss gives his say on Carlos Sainz' Spa incident

Ferrari F1 team principal Frederic Vasseur feels that it was a shame that Carlos Sainz could not get a good result despite starting from a promising grid slot. The Frenchman said:

"It’s a shame for Carlos because he too could have got a good result given that his pace was similar to Charles’ all weekend. The first corner here is often tricky and racing incidents after the start are always a possibility and that’s what happened."

"We opted to keep him out on track until the rain shower in the hope there might be a red flag which would have given us the chance to fix the car, but then it became clear that wouldn’t happen so we decided to retire him.

It will be interesting to see if Oscar Piastri responds to Carlos Sainz blaming him for the incident.