Sainz "sacrificed" himself in Kvyat Turn 1 incident

Carlos Sainz says he "sacrificed" himself at the start of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in order not to crash into Toro Rosso teammate Daniil Kvyat.

Carlos Sainz Jr., Scuderia Toro Rosso STR12, Esteban Ocon, Sahara Force India F1 VJM10 and Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes AMG F1 W08

Fernando Alonso, McLaren MCL32, Daniil Kvyat, Scuderia Toro Rosso STR12, as behind Stoffel Vandoorne, McLaren MCL32 hits a debris

Stoffel Vandoorne, McLaren MCL32, Fernando Alonso, McLaren MCL32, Daniil Kvyat, Scuderia Toro Rosso STR12

Carlos Sainz Jr., Scuderia Toro Rosso STR12

Kvyat went off track at Turn 1 at the start of the race and rejoined right in front of Sainz, who had to swerve to the left in order to avoid hitting his Russian teammate.

The move resulted in Sainz spinning and dropping to the bottom of the field.

The Spaniard acknowledged after the race that had he not turned left, he would have crashed into Kvyat at high speed.

Sainz said that he did not blame the Russian though, and reckons he would have done the same in his situation.

"I would have probably done the same," said Sainz. "I would have come back on track without caring too much because it's the start of the race.

"But it was either turning the wheel and spin or take both cars out due to the speed difference we had and everything.

"A shame, but it's one of those things that can happen at the start that you have to sometimes sacrifice," he added.

Kvyat believed, however, that Sainz's spin had nothing to do with him rejoining the track.

"I saw something in the mirrors, but yeah, I guess there is not anything to do with me or anything. Cold tyres maybe," he said.

Sainz added: "No, the tyres were up to temperature. It was just I was a bit surprised when he came back and I had to do a very harsh input on the steering to avoid him and this threw me into a spin.

"It's a racing incident for me. I'm not going to blame him for that because I would have probably done the same.

"When you are the car behind you have to decide in milliseconds to either keep it flat and maybe have a contact with your teammate or turn the wheel and force yourself into a spin."

While Kvyat retired later in the race, Sainz recovered to finish in eighth position, and the Spanish driver admitted he was not expecting to score points after his spin.

"No, definitely not, especially with the not-so-very-good pace that we've had all weekend, and I thought it would be tricky to come back but I actually started feeling pretty well with the car. We managed to overtake some people and suddenly we were P8."