Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz seems to be adapting seamlessly to the Maranello team in this 2021 Formula One championship. Despite the fact that the Spaniard’s last few weekends have been marked by some mistakes which did not allow him the fully capitalize on his potential, something that more often than not has meant overtime for his mechanics, the difference in terms of speed and performance between him and teammate Charles Leclerc is most of the time very close. Something we also saw Carlos Sainz do when he was Verstappen’s teammate at Toro Rosso.
The balance of power between the two Ferrari drivers is minimal, something that is also reflected in the ranking of both. Charles Leclerc is sixth ahead of the Russian Grand Prix, with 104, while Carlos is right behind the Monegasque driver, with 97,5 points. In that respect Carlos Sainz is doing much better than other drivers who changed team, like Daniel Ricciardo at McLaren (although he did win the Italian Grand Prix last weeked) and Sergio Perez at Red Bull Racing.
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Carlos Sainz himself has noticed that too, by the way, as he reports at Soymotor.com: “I arrived without expecting too much, without putting too many expectations on myself because I had a total of one and a half days to learn how the car works. I think I did 150 or 200 laps before the first race.” Yet Carlos Sainz too is experiencing that driving at Ferrari is more than just driving fast. “You realise that no matter how fast you are, it’s complicated. I’m far from 100%, but then I see the position in the championship and how close I am to where I want to be and then I say ‘if I keep working like this, I don’t think it will take long.” – he explained.
The Spanish driver feels his time with Ferrari will only get better, while he says he has many similarities with his teammate: “We are much more similar than you can imagine. Then you look at the data and you see that one is three hundredths of a second off the other in one corner and the other three hundredths of a second off the other. In Zandvoort qualifying he was six thousandths ahead of me and in Monza I was half a tenth of a second ahead of him.” – he added.
Because his teammate has been with Ferrari longer, Carlos Sainz also sees that Charles Leclerc is a little more comfortable in the SF21, but the Spanish driver is still pleased with the strides he has made during his first year with the Maranello team: “I see him in the race with more confidence in the car. I’m not the aggressive Carlos from McLaren and I’m sure if you think about the Carlos of a year or two ago, you wouldn’t say he’s so calculating and analytical now.” – Carlos concluded.
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