Carlos Sainz’s extra weapon is consistency: 3rd in average finish, behind Verstappen and Norris. Carlos Sainz is ahead of Charles Leclerc in this particular ranking.

The Spaniard is ahead of Charles Leclerc in this particular ranking. Whenever he has seen the checkered flag, he has always finished in the top six.

The man of the moment

During this Formula 1 summer break, one of the most talked-about names, both inside and outside the paddock, has been Carlos Sainz. After a first half of the season marked by uncertainty about his future, the Spanish driver, left without a seat at Ferrari for 2025 to make room for Lewis Hamilton, decided to accept the offer from Williams.

James Vowles, who has led the campaign to convince Sainz from the very beginning with the aim of pairing him with Alex Albon, has repeatedly emphasized that he considers Sainz one of the three or four best drivers on the grid. The numbers from this first half of 2024 seem to support his view, at least in terms of performance consistency.

Never worse than sixth

Looking at the average placement data this year, which is obtained by dividing the sum of a driver’s finishing positions by the number of completed GPs, the Spaniard is even third, preceded only by Max Verstappen and Lando Norris. The Spaniard has an average placement of 4.25, which takes into account his 12 finishes, excluding the race he missed in Saudi Arabia and his retirement from the Canadian GP. Whenever Carlos Sainz has seen the checkered flag, he has never finished lower than sixth, the only driver to do so along with Verstappen.

The reigning world champion tops this particular ranking with an average placement of 2.38, while Norris is second with 3.46. Carlos Sainz, however, beats Charles Leclerc by about half a position, with the Monegasque averaging 4.69, suffering especially from the 11th place in Austria and the 14th in Silverstone.

An objection to comparing average placement could be that a driver who retires frequently but has a few good finishes could be advantaged in the calculation, but in this case, all drivers from the four top teams have ‘discarded’ a similar number of races, ranging from a minimum of zero (Piastri alone) to a maximum of three (Russell alone) non-completed races.