Giovinazzi apologises for costly qualifying error

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Sauber's stand-in driver Antonio Giovinazzi apologised to the team after wrecking his car in qualifying in China on Saturday.

The Italian driver ran wide on the exit of the final corner and went onto the wet grass. The car lost control and spun across the track before making a heavy impact with the tyre barriers.

"It was a disappointing ending to qualifying,” Giovinazzi admitted. The Ferrari reserve driver is making his second Formula 1 start this weekend sitting in for Pascal Wehrlein.

“It was all good until the last corner of my final lap. I was already in Q2 and improving my lap time, but I pushed a bit too much.

“Then I touched the grass in the exit of the last corner, and lost the rear of the car.

“I apologise to the team for what happened; tomorrow I will do my best to put in a good performance."

Giovinazzi had already put in a good enough time to make it into Q2. However, the car was in no fit state to take part in the second round of qualifying. Giovinazzi himself was checked over in the medical centre before being released.

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"Yeah all good," he told Sky Sports F1 when asked if he was okay.

"Just want to say sorry to the guys," he repeated. "I was up on my time but this is racing.

"I just found the limit, too much on the limit, and when I touched the grass with the rear tyres I lost the rear end."

Giovinazzi is currently expected to start from 15th place on the grid, unless repairs to his car require a new gearbox which would involve a five-place grid penalty.

His team mate Marcus Ericsson also made it through to Q2 and will start the Chinese Grand Prix from 14th.

"I put in a good lap time in Q1, which again took me into Q2. P14 is an interesting starting place for the race," said the Swede, who was understandably distracted by the overnight news from home.

"I went to the track with very mixed feelings today, after what happened yesterday in Stockholm," he conceded. "Terrible news."

GALLERY: All the pictures from Saturday in Shanghai

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.