More apologies from Giovinazzi after Shanghai race smash

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After his impressive Formula 1 début in Melbourne two weeks ago, it was down to earth with a bump for Antonio Giovinazzi in Shanghai this weekend.

The Sauber stand-in had crashed heavily in qualifying on Saturday, requiring the car to be rebuilt overnight. A new gearbox was needed, for which he received a five place grid penalty for Sunday's race.

Then four laps into the Chinese Grand Prix Giovinazzi ran wide out of the final corner and touched the wet grass. He was able to keep control, but a damp patch on the main straight then sent him crashing into the pit wall. That triggered a safety car while the debris from the accident was cleared up.

"First of all, I want to apologise again to the team," the Ferrari reserve driver said afterwards. "They did a great job to get the car ready for the race.

"It was a shame that I crashed again today," he added. "A learning lesson. I just want to forget this weekend quickly."

Steely Hamilton stays in charge for Shanghai win

"Today it was not our day, especially not for Antonio," said Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn. "We are glad that he is fine after the accident.

"The conditions were difficult, even more so without having much experience."

Giovinazzi's team mate Marcus Ericsson started from 14th but was unable to keep up with the rest of the field and finished in last place a lap down from the leaders.

"The conditions were tricky as well as the asphalt temperatures being relatively low," he explained. "It made it difficult to get the tyres to work.

Overall, I struggled with the tyres during the whole race – I never really got them into the right working window."

"We were just not able to keep up with the pace of the competitors," Kaltenborn admitted. "This race showed the weaknesses of our car.

"Now we focus on the next race weekend in Bahrain in one week.”

GALLERY: All the pictures from Sunday 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.