{"id":812179,"date":"2026-07-19T13:09:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T13:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/812179\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T13:09:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T13:09:15","slug":"carlos-sainz-praises-kimi-antonelli-for-apology-after-idiot-comment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/812179\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Sainz praises Kimi Antonelli for apology after \u201cidiot\u201d comment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carlos Sainz<\/a> has praised Kimi Antonelli<\/a> for spontaneously apologising after the Italian called the Spaniard an \u201cidiot\u201d over team radio at Formula 1\u2019s Belgian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

In the opening practice session at Spa-Francorchamps, Antonelli found a slow Sainz ahead of him at Stavelot. Annoyed, the Mercedes<\/a> driver expressed his discontent on the track \u2013 aborting his attempt and staying close to the Williams<\/a> \u2013 and on the radio: \u201cSainz, what an idiot!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what Antonelli was doing with me,\u201d Sainz told his own race engineer. \u201cHe throw the car into me, I don\u2019t know why.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Antonelli came up to his peer when they randomly met on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis morning we actually woke up at the same time,\u201d Sainz recounted after qualifying. \u201cSo we went in the lift at the same time and I saw him and I said, \u2018What’s up?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the guy is a great guy. He just apologised, said that it was the heat of the moment, that he had seen the replay and I actually didn’t impede him that much, for being an FP1 and not being an important lap of the weekend \u2013 and, not being impeded that much, that he was being a bit emotional at the time.<\/p>\n

\"Andrea <\/p>\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes<\/p>\n

Photo by: Clive Mason \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd when someone comes out like that and tells that to your face straight away as soon as he sees you, for me it’s a show of being a great guy. So I have no other thing than to thank him for it and wish him the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Antonelli will start from pole position, Sainz qualified 15th \u2013 he will start one spot higher courtesy of Isack Hadjar<\/a>\u2019s grid penalty.<\/p>\n

Despite outqualifying team-mate Alex Albon<\/a> for the 10th time this season and the fifth in a row, the Williams driver described his Belgian GP so far as \u201csuch a tough weekend\u201d after a technical problem cost him \u201cthree to five tenths\u201d a lap throughout practice, although the situation was resolved for qualifying.<\/p>\n

\u201cHappy that we found the issue,\u201d Sainz said. \u201cNot so happy that we cannot explain the issue very well. So we need to keep digging.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photos from Belgian GP – Sunday<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Sainz has praised Kimi Antonelli for spontaneously apologising after the Italian called the Spaniard an \u201cidiot\u201d over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[3032,3272,49,48,3020,285028,578,282831,576,577,1881,82,1196],"class_list":["post-812179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-andrea-kimi-antonelli","tag-belgian-gp","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-carlos-sainz","tag-carlos-sainz-praises-kimi-antonelli-for-apology-after-u201cidiotu201d-comment","tag-f1","tag-f1-belgian-grand-prix","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-mercedes","tag-sports","tag-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}