Ferrari has a key course ahead. One in which we will have to be aware of what happens on the track, with the team having to go all out to beat Red Bull and Mercedes, and also what happens in the garage. Because Frederic Vasseur, the new boss of Maranello, has not decided who’s going to call the shots in the team… and that gives the option to see Carlos Sainz as the leader of the reds.
That, once again, a Spaniard be the great reference of what the team is most laureate of all time in Formula 1. Yes, it has never been said clearly, but Mattia Binotto, in a sometimes not very subtle way, had Leclerc as his right eye. And Charles is the one who has been on the team the longest.
Also who has achieved the most victories in Formula 1, highlighting his first course in red and also a 2022 in which he started like a rocket. Winning in Bahrain, and above all, demonstrating that there was no one around who could overshadow him.
The first part of the season, vital
At least until the summer break, and precisely that will be essential for Vasseur to bet on Sainz as the great name of Ferrari to, why not, fight for winning the Formula 1 World Championship. The beginning will mark the end.
There Sainz has, more or less, one of his pending subjects. Carlos is an expert in the second half of the season, where he has always brought out the best version of himself both in McLaren as in Ferrari. He said it, at the beginning of 2022 he was not entirely comfortable with a car that resisted him.
That wouldn’t let him be himself. Despite everything, there is little to object to his work in the race. In the first 13 races, until Hungary, Carlos added a total of 156 points. They were only 15 fewer than Charles Leclerc.
Austria, turning point
In memory, two things. One, his victory in Great Britain, with the famous “stop inventing” that he told his team on the radio. Two, the race just after in Austria, with the car on fire and with him adding a 0 in his box. A race, that of Austria, in which Charles Leclerc won.
In that sense, in the long run, Carlos Sainz added a total of four DNFs to the Hungaroring for the three of Charles Leclerc, and improved his starting position in three of the ten races he completed. In the others, he or he ended as he started or was unable to hold the position.
On Saturdays, for Leclerc
On Sunday he kept the type with Leclerc, but on Saturday he succumbed to his partner. Of course the rest too, because Charles was practically perfect in the fight for pole position. Sainz achieved a first place, in Great Britain, while Leclerc obtained seven. yes, so he only converted two to wins.
Ferrari is going to be more than aware of the evolution of both, and Sainz has in the fights against the clock one of his pending accounts with respect to his partner. Too they should look at themselves, Well, the evolution of the car in 2022 was not entirely correct.
Ferrari, worse evolution than Red Bull… and than Mercedes
Suffice it to say that if in the first 13 races Sainz managed to score 156 points, in the remaining nine he stayed in 90 adding three podiums with three third posts in Belgium, Singapore and Brazil. Leclerc, for his part, has not won a race since his victory in Austria.
In addition, he was left with two pole positions… the same as a Carlos who I was already beginning to get the point to the car.
