Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz has fired a stark warning to Formula One title rivals Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton with just two rounds until the end of the 2021 season, as teams head for Saudi Arabia for this weekend’s race at the Jeddah circuit.
Max Verstappen’s lead has been reduced to just 8 points as the British driver won the last two races, with the championship heading toward an epic conclusion. To add to the tension between Red Bull and Mercedes, the fight for the Constructors’ title is also on a knife-edge, with the ‘Silver Arrows’ just five points ahead as Red Bull is looking to end the Mercedes dominance they seek an eighth successive crown. Yet Christian Horner and Toto Wolff aren’t the only team bosses overseeing tight battles in the Middle East, with the season culminating a week after this Sunday’s Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi.
Scuderia Ferrari is close to securing place in the Constructors’ standings, with a seemingly commanding 39.5 points ahead of rivals McLaren However, the Maranello team’s drivers, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, are currently behind McLaren’s Lando Norris in the fight for fifth place in the individual standings.
Just one point separates McLaren driver and Charles Leclerc, with Carlos Sainz a further 6.5 points further back.
And the Spaniard thinks overtaking could be difficult in the next two races with so many drivers, and teams, jostling for position – a notion which will make it difficult for Verstappen or Hamilton to cut through the field if they find themselves down on the grid. As a result, the Spanish driver feels neither Lewis Hamilton or Max Verstappen can afford to drop down the grid in Saudi Arabia.
“Obviously Jeddah we have no idea what we are going to find there. It looks like a very high-speed circuit, and we have seen in a high-speed circuit that with cars like Alpine, McLaren, and AlphaTauri, all of a sudden the field compresses a lot when it’s a high speed circuit. So it could be a very tight battle in Jeddah. Then in Abu Dhabi, with the new changes they’ve done to the track also, it looks like a higher speed track than what it used to be. There are less chicanes, and more high speed nature, and this could also bring the whole midfield back together.” – the Ferrari driver explained.
In his first season with the Italian giants, Carlos Sainz has scored three podium finishes in Monaco, Hungary, and Russia.
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