If anyone expected Charles Leclerc to be a clear number one at Ferrari after the team parted ways with Sebastian Vettel, Carlos Sainz Jnr proved them wrong during his first season in 2021.
In another rebuilding year for Ferrari, Sainz ended up ahead of Leclerc in the championship last season. So when the team rocked up to pre-season testing in Barcelona and Bahrain with a car clearly in the fight at the front, Sainz could be forgiven for dreaming of multiple victories and even a championship challenge with his team’s new ground effect car.
It would not be the case. Instead, Sainz suffered a conspicuously challenging start to the season. He was clearly not on the same page as his team mate with the new F1-75. Although Sainz did a decent enough job over the first two rounds in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia the pace difference between him was as blinding as the floodlights lining the two circuits.
While he backed up his team mate to establish Ferrari as early championship contenders to Red Bull, his solid start to the season began to crumble. He was unlucky in Melbourne qualifying, frustrated by a red flag and then delayed leaving the pits through no fault of his own leaving him ninth on the grid. But in his haste to gain places, a silly spin on the second lap ended his chances of points in an Albert Park gravel trap.
He could have bounced back in front of the Tifosi in Imola, but spinning out at the second Rivazza and damaging his car in the barriers in Q2 did little to help. He recovered well enough in the sprint race to claim fourth on the grid behind Sergio Perez, but an unfortunate incident with Ricciardo at the first chicane sent him spinning out of the race for a second consecutive round.
No matter. He could make amends in Miami – an entirely new circuit. But brows on the Ferrari pit wall furrowed even deeper in second practice when he spun at the slippery approach to the back chicane, clattering hard into the barriers and leaving his mechanics with a heavy overnight repair job. After completing their work, Sainz took his rebuilt car to a podium. But he openly admitted his fitness was not at 100% after he’d failed to run a full race distance over the last two rounds.
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While Leclerc took another pole in Barcelona, Sainz again could not prevent Max Verstappen from beating him to the front row. He lost two places off the line by almost jumping the start and when he ran off the circuit entirely unprovoked just a handful of laps into the race, it appeared that Ferrari could be feeling buyer’s remorse having only just re-signed Sainz to a substantial contract extension.
The volume of errors Sainz was producing was not good enough for any team, let alone the high expectations of Ferrari. However, he finally began to turn things around. In a difficult race in changeable conditions in Monaco, Sainz kept his head better than his own strategists did, wisely staying on his wet tyres until he could switch onto slicks, jumping his team mate to take second place.
He came close to victory in Canada, leading the charge for Ferrari as Leclerc was hampered with engine penalties. He placed Verstappen under as much pressure as he could over the later laps, but no one was stopping Verstappen that afternoon.
Finally, Sainz’s breakthrough came at Silverstone. A first career pole helped in no small part by Leclerc’s Q3 error holding up Verstappen gave Sainz his best ever prospect of a win. He lost the lead to Verstappen off the line, but was granted a second chance by Zhou Guanyu’s horrific race-stopping accident. He benefited greatly from the chance to pit under the final Safety Car, unlike Leclerc, but he managed to overtake his team mate and escape the pack, finally joining the ranks of Formula 1’s race winners.
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By his own admission, Sainz had to work out how to adjust his driving style to wring pace from the F1-75. He showed his improvement through this middle phase of the year, but was hampered by Ferrari’s woeful reliability. Hydraulics problems cost him any chance of a podium in Baku and he was moments away from snatching second place from Verstappen in Austria when his power unit failed, prompting a spectacular conflagration.
Sainz served his inevitable power unit change grid penalty in Paul Ricard and after helping Leclerc to pole position in qualifying, he did a commendable job of working his way up the order – despite his team’s strategy – to claim a decent haul of points in fifth. He almost took pole in Hungary and beat Leclerc in the race thanks to another poor Ferrari strategy call, but lost the final podium spot to Hamilton in the closing laps.
Sainz was now performing at his best level all year, but Ferrari’s form was starting to drop. He wasn’t helped by a penalty for an unsafe pit lane release in Zandvoort costing him three places at the chequered flag and he did another admirable job to recover from 18th on the grid in Monza to finish fourth, passing Sergio Perez in the process.
Sainz’s strong end to the season was marred somewhat by him losing control on a soaking wet opening lap in Suzuka, wrecking his car. He looked set to make amends in the next round at the Circuit of the Americas, taking a well-deserved pole position. However, any hopes of victory faded the moment the lights went out. After a poor getaway that lost him the lead, he was tagged and spun by George Russell, ending his race.
By now, however, the championships were out of reach and all that Sainz could race for was pride. In Brazil, he outperformed Leclerc across the weekend, the only driver able to hang with the two Mercedes during the race to secure third – the best position he could have realistically hoped to get. But as the season came to an end in Abu Dhabi, he was beaten by his team mate a final time, Leclerc making more out of his one-stop strategy than Sainz was able to with his extra stop.
At the end of the season, Sainz had shown enough reason to convince Ferrari they had made the right choice in extending him until the end of 2024. But with Ferrari and Sainz both hoping to remain in the hunt for the titles, Sainz knows that he cannot afford as many errors as he was guilty of in 2022, and must carry the improved pace of his second half of the season into next year.
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