Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc feels “very much” pushed by Carlos Sainz and beleives his Maranello team-mate has made him a better Formula 1 driver.
Many fans and a big part of the media expected Carlos Sainz to play second fiddle to Charles Leclerc when the Italian side officially confirmed the Spanish driver would be replacing Sebastian Vettel at Ferrari for the 2021 Formula 1 season and beyond.
Yet the 2021 campaign had a totally different outcome: while Charles Leclerc finished ahead of Carlos Sainz more often in the qualifying sessions on Saturdays, it was the 27-year-old Spaniard who scored more points on race day. It was the first time in his Formula 1 career Charles Leclerc had been outscored by a team-mate and he admits he is being pushed a huge amount by him.
“We learned a lot.” – Charles explained, as reported by Motorsport – “As always when you have a new team-mate you always learn, [such as] the new ways Carlos is approaching race weekends, the way he works, his talent, his raw speed also, the way he takes the corners. He had an amazing year, so he obviously pushed me very, very much to try and perform better at every race and it’s just been extremely interesting.” – he added.
Charles Leclerc is widely considered one of the best drivers on a fast lap and this was also the case last year, for he was usually comfortably faster than Carlos Sainz and the Monegasque driver was also able to score to impressive pole positions, on the streets of Baku and Monte Carlos. However, on Sundays Charles and Carlos were always much closer, with CarlosSainz often enjoying stronger races and making fewer mistakes than the other Ferrari driver.
Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection from Puma!
Charles Leclerc says his own performances in races were where he needed to improve heading into the campaign and feels Carlos Sainz’s ability in that department has helped him to do so.
“I think maybe one of the strong points of Carlos is the race management and tyre management, and that was probably my weakness in 2019. I progressed a lot as a driver in 2020 and again last year, and part of last year was thanks to Carlos.” – he added.
The Maranello drivers kept things clean on track and often helped each other in different key moments of the race, but at the same time they were occasionally involved in some close battles and Carlos Sainz admitted that says his team-mate is one of the drivers he enjoys fighting with.
In his eyes, the Monegasque, as well as Lando Norris and George Russell, is “on a very good level” and also keeps things clean and fair.
Leave a Reply