Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz sympathised with Daniel Ricciardo after the Australian driver’s contract was terminated early by McLaren, who decided to replace him at the end of the 2022 Formula 1 championship. The Spaniard admitted that he also felt “ordinary” behind the wheel of his Ferrari car immediately after joining the Maranello team in 2021, pointing out that the way Daniel Ricciardo did not ‘click’ with his McLaren team “can happen to anyone.”
Carlos Sainz was involved in a crash with Daniel Ricciardo earlier in the season, at the Imola circuit, with the Australian driver hitting the F1-75 car of Carlos and taking him out of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, which left the Spaniard 48 points behind team-mate Charles Leclerc in the standings, as Carlos also encountered difficulties in matching his Maranello teammate in the early part of the 2022 F1 campaign.
The Ferrari driver defended Daniel Ricciardo, who has been highly criticized for not being able to match the pace of his McLaren teammate Lando Norris during the last two years, as Carlos pointed out that this situation could happen to anyone on the grid, even explaining that Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen were also right not on the pace from the start of this championship
For Daniel Ricciardo things did not improve with McLaren and the team recently confirmed that the Australian driver will leave after the 2022 Formula 1 campaign, that is one year before his deal with McLaren was due to expire, as “the team decided to make a change” and bring new driver to partner Lando Norris in 2023.
Carlos Sainz has been able to get closer to Charles Leclerc performances in the last few races, but the Spaniard is aware that his start of the 2022 Formula One campaign could have been better:
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“Yes, I can understand because even my first half of the season, the first three or four races I felt ordinary in the Ferrari and I know how fast I am.” – Carlos Sainz replied in an interview for Sky Sports F1 before the Belgian Grand Prix at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps when asked about how drivers with certain styles can at times not be able to get the most of their cars .
“And it was like ‘ah, that didn’t give me the right feeling’, and I struggled a lot, and then I managed to improve later in the season and get to a good level. I don’t know how the McLaren is nowadays because it’s passed two years already and I don’t know how much that car has changed. But in F1, it’s like that. There are cars that adapt well to your style, others that don’t. All drivers have better cars suited to them than others, even the best ones like Lewis and Max. At the beginning of the season, they didn’t seem to go 100% with their own cars, you know, so it’s normal. It’s part of our lives. We always have better cars than others and cars that come more natural than others. And it happened to me this year, it happened to Daniel at McLaren. It can happen to anyone.” – Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz concluded.
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