Carlos Sainz secured his first Formula 1 Grand Prix victory at the 150th attempt, which took place at the Silverstone circuit in the British Grand Prix last month. For the Ferrari driver that was the best moment in a season which could have had so many more had it not been for a series of reliability issues, misfortunes as well as a few uncharacteristic driver errors made by Carlos Sainz in the first part of the 2022 Formula 1 as he tried to get to grips with the characteristics of the Maranello team’s F1-75 challenger, which is based on the new ground effect concept introduced this season.
The Spanish driver spun at the Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit in the early stages of the race, as he was trying to recover the lost ground off the start and then was taken out of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the Imola circuit, following an incident with Daniel Ricciardo. This meant in two of the first four races in 2022 he was able to complete just one racing lap, putting an end to a streak of 31 completed races. The situation definitely hurt his confidence and made it more difficult for him to understand the Ferrari F1-75 car.
What followed was a trip across the gravel at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, in front of his home fans, which didn’t allow him to fight for a place on the podium and power unit failures at the Baku City Circuit in Azerbaijan and at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, adding two more retirements to his name. Carlos Sainz had a great pace at the Paul Ricard circuit in the French Grand Prix, but was not able to fight for victory after having to start from the back of the grid due to receiving penalties for changing power units components. Carlos still impressively recovered to P5 in France.
Carlos Sainz finished in nine of the 13 races so far in 2012 and stood on the podium six times. That represents a higher tally than his Maranello teammate Charles Leclerc by one. While the Spaniard is still significantly behind in the qualifying head-to-head with his teammate (10-3), his race pace has been strong especially in the second part so far, scoring an average finishing position of 2.89 (as compared to Charles Leclerc’s 3.20).
“It’s been a rollercoaster season, especially the beginning” -Carlos Sainz admitted in a discussion with F1 Correspondent & Presenter Lawrence Barretto during the Hungaroring weekend ahead of the summer break – “It’s been tough with this car. Two consecutive DNFs at the beginning dropped me out of the championship fight very early. Then I had a high peak with [fighting for the win in] Canada and [winning at] Silverstone, then a low, then a high. But I’d much rather have the rollercoaster being as competitive as I am now than at the beginning.” – he added.
The DNF in Austria due to a power unit failure really hurt because it was damaging on several levels: the Spaniard was on his way to completing a one-two finish for the Maranello team, behind his teammate. In addition to this, he lost the momentum he had built in Canada and in the British Grand Prix and the engine issue led to the need to change many components in France, which led to a back-of-the-grid start.
During the difficult moments in 2022, the Maranello team has publicly backed Carlos: “[That support] was important, especially after Austria, which was hard to digest because I know I haven’t had the easiest start of the season, but my season was starting to come together with a strong result in Canada and a win in Silverstone; I was about to finish in the top-two again for the third consecutive race and then a DNF sent my championship hopes and a lot of points to the bin,” he added.
The Spaniard is aware that his lack of consistency “threw me off a lot” as it’s never been an issue during his Formula 1 career until now. However, it was his previous experience of understanding the cars and being able to adapt his driving style that allowed him to secure a run of strong results: in his first year with Scuderia Ferrari, Carlos ended the championship with 15 straight finishes in the points zone, while in his final season with McLaren he had seven points finishes to end the year, which gave him the belief he would crack it.
“If anything, everyone [in Ferrari] is happy [with my results]. If I am competitive, the team is going to be happy. They have seen the progress we have done with the car. I’m not saying it’s done, or I don’t still need to progress and keep making myself comfortable and strong, but it’s definitely helped the way I approach the weekend. My mindset into the weekend now is more focused on maximising the weekend, instead of every session trying to find something in the car to click.” – he added.
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Just like Scuderia Ferrari have defended Carlos Sainz, the Spaniard has also stuck by the Maranello team, especially regarding the topic of race strategy, with Ferrari being highly criticized due to a series of questionable decision in this first part of the season. Carlos Sainz remains confident and is not having any of it.
“The team is performing at a very high level. We are up against a very strong team like Red Bull which makes things complicated and we need to perform at a high level to match them. The team has progressed a lot these last two years. Strategy is always a talking point in Ferrari. I don’t know why everyone looks at our strategy and over-analyses what we should have done. I guess it’s part of being Ferrari. There is over-analysis of our radio too. All our radio messages get broadcast. Maybe this gives an impression of chaos. But my conversations on radio are always the same, it doesn’t matter if it’s a calm race or not, or a strategy-dependent race or not, we’re always having these conversations you’re hearing on the broadcast and I find them extremely important to take the right decisions. I’d much rather have them than not have them, trust me.” – he continued.
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