Carlos Sainz has apologised for causing his McLaren Formula 1 team “unnecessary str🦩ess” by crashing during opening practice for the Russian Grand Prix.

The Spaniard lost con🥃trol of his MCL35 at Turn 7 in FP1 and slid backwards into the ♛barriers, causing extensive damage to his rear-wing.

Sainz was able to trundle back to the garage under his own steam but left his mechanics wit🍰h a repair job in order to get his car ready and back out in time for the aꦇfternoon session.

“Everything♔ is OK, than𒁃k God the mechanics did a great job to get the car back together for FP2 – so very happy with that,” he said.

“And some apologies for the team, for causing𝔉 them unnecessary stress in FP1. But the track was pa✨rticularly dirty there and I think it caught us out there by surprise. In FP2, we could get back to business and complete a good session.”

Sainz took no further part in FP1 after his accident before putting his McLaren fourth in the timesheets𝔉 in second practice, just behind Daniel Ricciardo, who impressed on Friday for Renault.

After seeing the pace demonstrated by Ricciardo at Sochi, Sainz is unsure of how the peckiꦿng order stands between McLaren and its main rivals.

“They definitely seemed to have the edge over us in the last couple of races, especially on Friday they tend to be very, very quick, so hopefully we can get them tomorrow, but in gen🌄eral Renault look a bit strong,” he explained.

“[Aero set-up] is very tricky, particularly my car today, we’ve been tending to be a bit o🧸n the understeer-y side so I was complaining a bit about the balance – but hopefully when it comes tomorrow we’ll get it right. We’re not that far off actually.”