May 20 (GMM) Carlos Sainz lost his lucky grey cap at the recent Spanish grand prix.
For the past two years, as the 20-year-old conquered the Formula Renault 3.5 series, impressed Red Bull with his F1 tests, and earned his move to Toro Rosso in 2015, Sainz always wore the same Red Bull-branded grey cap — now slightly tatty and with a couple of broken adjustment tabs on the rear.
“Do what you can to find my cap,” El Confidencial newspaper quotes Sainz as having told his manager Borja Ortiz-Echague after the Barcelona round.
Apparently, in a moment of innocent jest, Sainz’s countryman and hero Fernando Alonso threw the cap into the crowd on Barcelona race-day.
Sainz believed it was lost forever, until a fan ‘tweeted’ to the Toro Rosso driver: “I have your lucky cap. What will you give me for it?”
Manager Ortiz-Echague reportedly negotiated for 24 hours, as the fan wanted an all-access paddock pass — but Sainz only has one for his manager and another for a family member.
“Finally, agreement was reached,” Spain’s El Confidencial reports. “The fan will receive a signed cap”, tickets to a forthcoming race and another piece of personalised memorabilia.
