Carlos Sainz was worried he wouldn't be ready for Australian F1 Grand Prix

In a spectacular turn of events, Sainz clinched victory for Ferrari at the prestigious event, a mere fortnight following his appendicitis surgery during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend, which consequently sidelined him from the race.

This tight timeline only afforded Sainz a week to recuperate and prepare for the demanding Australian leg of the championship. 

Amidst his intense efforts to regain optimum physical condition for the Albert Park spectacle, Sainz confessed that the trip to Australia hung in uncertainty until the eleventh hour.

"Nine days ago, when I was about to catch the flight to come to Australia, I was still in bed," said Sainz.

"Barely I could use my abdominal to move and I was like: 'This is not going to happen'. But I took the flight and suddenly when I landed in Australia, the feeling was a lot better.

"Every 24 hours, I was making a lot more progress than the first seven days, which is actually what all the doctors told me: 'Don't worry, because the second week, every day is going to improve a lot more than the first week.'

"Even Alex Albon told me this, I remember, so it just followed more or less what everyone told me."

He added: "As soon as I got my appendix removed, I went on the internet and started talking with professionals and said, 'OK, what helps to speed up recovery?'

"From that point onwards, I started doing all the sort of things that you can do to speed up recovery, the wounds, the scar tissue, what you can help to be faster on that. Talking to other athletes, talking to other doctors in Spain, internationally. And then I put together a plan with my team.

"The reason why athletes recover faster is because you can dedicate 24 hours per day for seven days to recovery. And that's exactly what I did.

"I started going to hyperbaric chambers twice a day for one hour, taking an Indiba machine, that is an electromagnetic thing for the wounds.

"I was programming my time in bed, my time to go for a walk, my time to eat, the kind of food that you have to recover. Just everything is centered around recovery to try and be ready for Australia."