Water bottle issue unsettles Sainz's afternoon

Renault's Carlos Sainz struggled to reach the end of Sunday's Australian GP after a faulty drink bottle forced him to ingest too much water, making him feel nauseous.

The Spaniard ran in the battling top-10 at the outset but drifted back a spot as he started to feel uncomfortable. In the end, he painstakingly managed to hold on to the last position in the points but it was a challenging afternoon for the 23-year-old.

"I had the drinks bottle pumping water through my mouth since lap one and I was drinking and drinking and drinking and I just got full of water in my stomach,” he said.

"I wasn’t feeling good with the stomach with all the water inside, going from side to side it was very difficult.

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"At some point under the Safety Car I nearly had to vomit, so from there on it was just about making it to the finish. It is a bit unfortunate."

Early on in the race, Sainz enjoyed a good tussle with childhood hero Fernando Alonso to whom he eventually lost out. The Renault driver was happy however with the overall performance of his R.S.18

"It’s unfortunate but we just need to learn from it," he said.

"It was a positive start, I’m happy with the performance over the weekend.

"I think I could have done much more without the problems and with better car handling in the first stint. We keep learning and we’ll be putting the work in ahead of Bahrain."

Team mate Nico Hulkenberg also collected his share of points on Sunday, bringing his car home in P7.

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