Next season Carlos Sainz will join Scuderia Ferrari on a two-year deal after two seasons at McLaren, creating the youngest driver pairing in Ferrari’s recent history in the process, alongside Charles Leclerc. The news was officially confirmed back in May, as the Spanish driver admitted to being surprised by the depth of the analysis which the Maranello team made before signing him for 2021.
When asked how important the 2019 podium in Brazil was in securing the move to the Italian side, Carlos Sainz explained: “Of course it had an influence, I cannot deny a podium makes you be a bit more in the spotlight and people look at you. But from what I’ve seen from how the top teams analyse the drivers, it’s in a much more complete picture than what I thought at first. The way the top teams analyse drivers race by race is a lot more detailed than I thought so I’m sure they were looking into my previous seasons, not only into that podium in Brazil but also the consistency of the campaign and finishing P6 in the drivers’ championship.” – he said, as reported by ESPN.
“I think they analyse a lot more stuff than I thought and this was a bit of a surprise, the amount of analysis the teams sometimes go into individually. So a good surprise because sometimes in the midfield you think they’re not looking into you too much or you’re not on TV much!” – the Spanish driver added.
Carlos Sainz’s move to Ferrari went against what would be expected in a normal season in that it was confirmed before the championship even started and because most of the negotiations were conducted over the commonly used online chat services provided by Zoom, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a result, his first visit to the fabled Ferrari factory at Maranello will not happen for the foreseeable future: “I’ve not been there yet. For contractual reasons and for a matter of full commitment to my team I’m not planning on being related to Ferrari or anything near Ferrari in the next couple of months.” – Carlos Sainz concluded.
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