Sainz chases Milan thieves who stole €500k watch

Sainz chases down and stops thieves who stole his €500,000 watch

A €500,000 watch, a hotel door in central Milan, and a Formula 1 driver deciding to sprint after the person who just snatched it from his wrist. That is the skeleton of the incident La Stampa attributes to Carlos Sainz: after the Monza race, leaving the Hotel Armani, he was allegedly robbed, and he pursued the suspected perpetrators with his bodyguard until they were cornered on Via Montenapoleone. The watch returned to his wrist. The suspects ended up arrested, according to published reports.

The figure is the first thing that catches the eye and the first thing debated. €500,000 in the Italian daily's account; some claim earlier versions of the case mentioned €50,000. There is an abyss between those two numbers: if the watch is worth half a million, the chase looks like a movie scene; if it’s worth a tenth of that, it remains reckless. And while we’re at it, whose bravery was it?

What peine after the Monza race

The scheme described by La Stampa has three acts. Sainz leaves the hotel, someone takes his watch, and the driver and his acompañante start running. The pursuit ends on Via Montenapoleone, one of Europe's most exclusive shopping streets, right next to Milan's fashion district. Shortly after, according to the same report, the alleged perpetrators are detained: the paper specifies that two of them were 19 and 20 years old.

The published facts depict a street robbery and an immediate reaction from the victim. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything else—the exact value, the robber's attitude, the bodyguard's role—falls into interpretation, and there the case branches out.

The bodyguard, the gun, and reasonable doubt

One question hovers over any version of this episode: if Sainz had protection, how did they take the watch from both of them? Squaring the circle is the first issue raised when reading the story: the bodyguard didn't prevent the theft but did participate in the subsequent chase that ended with the watch recovered.

From there comes the second derivative: would the driver have run the same way without a bodyguard behind him? No one knows. It is even suggested whether the presence of a firearm on the bodyguard influenced the alleged thieves' reaction; that detail is not in the published information and is posed as conjecture. What is on the table is that the scene doesn't hold up without someone running alongside.

Can you walk around with a half-million-euro watch?

This is where the case stops being a sports anecdote and becomes a matter of public safety. Part of the audience has it clear: strolling through an urban center with such an object is unnecessary exposure, especially when the owner doesn't need to prove anything. The opposing answer is equally sharp: the freedom to wear what one wants isn't negotiable, and the problem belongs to the thief, not the wearer.

The case has a parallel drawn by those trinc this episode: the theft of a €70,000 watch from Bulgarian tennis player Grigor Dimitrov in Barcelona. Two athletes, two cities, two high-end watches, and the same pattern: the object becomes the target. For several participants, expensive watches have ceased to be accessories and are declared risks.

The driver: what is discussed about Sainz

On the sporting level, the episode has peine the conversation about the Madrid native's place on the grid: a driver who competed against Verstappen at Toro Rosso, who finished ahead of Norris at McLaren, and who fights with the so-called il predestinato at Ferrari. Fans summarize it with irony: he set the fastest lap in his battle against time. The comparison with Alonso, the other Spaniard on the grid, always appears, even if just to clarify that the Asturian's shadow is long.

Insecurity, official narrative, and politics

The incident has also served as ammunition in the debate on security in major European cities. Some read it as further proof that the public debate on crime goes one way and the street another, while others recall that whoever governs the country where it peine hasn't changed the scenario of a handbag snatch in central Milan. The temptation to turn a watch into a political manifesto is high. The facts, for now, are three arrests and a victim who got their property back.

What doesn't add up

Arrests, recovered watch, and a driver coming out well from a scene that could have ended any which way. The exact point where analysis gets stuck is the same as the beginning: the difference between €50,000 and €500,000 is not a nuance, and it depends on whether this is a valuable anecdote or a recurring security problem each season on the Formula 1 calendar. It remains to be seen what judicial classification the case receives and if anyone bothers to clarify the figure.