Carlos Sainz, a bitter ending
He was the only one to beat Red Bull in the most dominant season in Formula 1 history, but he also finishes the championship with the most bitter face: a strange year for Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard offered excellent consistency in performance for almost the entire 2023 season, and the standings were “rewarding” him with fourth place in the driver’s championship and a considerable advantage over Charles Leclerc, which amounted to 22 points after Interlagos.
To the disastrous weekend in Las Vegas, which began with the manhole cover incident and ended with a regretful sixth place for a genuinely competitive Ferrari and an incident caused at the first corner, the Abu Dhabi weekend was added. At Yas Marina, Carlos Sainz was unrecognizable, hitting the wall in FP2, being eliminated in Q1, and generally never finding rhythm in the SF-23. Result: starting 16th, the Smooth Operator couldn’t make his way up, leaving Charles Leclerc alone in the fight against Mercedes in the constructors’ standings. It’s normal that the Spaniard is disheartened after a race spent hoping for a Safety Car (which never came) to get a free tire change.
Carlos Sainz’s comments
“It was a really tough race; already with the hard tire in the first stint, we didn’t make the progress we expected. It has been like this all year: every time we started with the hard tire, we couldn’t then climb back up, for one reason or another,” these were his words to Sky Sport F1 at the end of the 2023 Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
“We were out of the points, so we relied on luck to get into the top ten. It didn’t happen, but overall these last two races have been tough for me. From that incident in Las Vegas onwards, it seems like nothing has gone in my direction. We lost a lot of points in these last two races, also losing the opportunity to finish second in the Constructors’ Championship. It’s a shame because the season was going really well; these are two difficult races to digest.” – Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz concluded at the end of the final round of the season.
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