Carlos Sainz moved to Scuderia Ferrari at the end of the 2021 Formula 1 season, joining Charles Leclerc with the main aim of helping the Maranello team make a comeback after the very difficult 2020 Formula 1 season. In the end, the Italian side was able to take third place in the overall constructors’ championship after an intense battle with McLaren for a place behind Mercedes and Red Bull.
On a personal level, Carlos Sainz finished the season with a great P5 in the drivers’ championship, 5.5 points ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc, and was able to take four podiums finishes during his first year alongside the Maranello team. Charles Leclerc only finished on the podium in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. However, the Monegasque driver scored two pole positions, in Monaco and Baku, two street tracks that suited the Ferrari SF21 car.
Both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc felt they had learned a lot from each other in their first year as teammates, but Carlos Sainz also confirmed that at the beginning he found it difficult to understand how how Charles Leclerc was driving so fast in the testing sessions which took place ahead of the start of the 2021 Formula 1 championship:
“Since the moment I arrived to winter testing in Bahrain, I had a lot of things to learn from Charles. The way that he was driving the Ferrari in a particular way to be as quick and as fast as he’s being all year long, I’ve had to adapt myself [to it], I had to copy a lot of the stuff that I was seeing on the data. Sometimes it was difficult to believe that it was possible to do that, and it was so crazy quick that it was actually a bit shocking. But little by little, adapting and trying to learn from him, I managed to get to a good level. There’s still things that when we will go into the winter break, he’s much stronger than me in certain areas. We will exchange some information and we will try and both become better drivers learning from each other.” – Carlos Sainz said.
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Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz forged a close friendship off-track as well as on-track, which is an ideal situation for Scuderia Ferrari, who is confident it can rely on two strong drivers to work together in the interest of the team, as Ferrari hopes to fight for race wins next season:
“We learned a lot” – Charles Leclerc added – “As always, when you have a new teammate, you always learn, [such as] the new ways Carlos is approaching race weekends, the way he works, his talent, his raw speed also, the way he takes the corners. He’s had an amazing year, so he has obviously pushed me very, very much to try and perform better at every race and it’s just been extremely interesting. I think maybe one of the strong points of Carlos is the race management and tyre management, and that’s probably been my weakness in 2019. I’ve progressed a lot as a driver in 2020, and again this year, and part of this year is thanks to Carlos.” – the Monegasque driver added.
Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc were very close especially in the last part of the 2021 Formula 1 championship and were involved in a nice battle for seventh place in Saudi Arabia. Carlos Sainz felt confident that the close competition between him and his teammate would take both drivers “to a better level next season, and it’s also going to benefit Ferrari. It’s a great competition to have, and a great teammate to have, apart from being a super cool guy to have as a teammate.” – the Spanish driver concluded.
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