What did Carlos Sainz do to you? A response to the criticism against the Spanish driver

This article does not aim to address technical matters or provide a cold list of Carlos Sainz’s achievements during his Ferrari tenure since joining the Maranello team back in 2021, when he replaced four-time Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel. It is simply a reflection, with words and punctuation, intended to highlight how unfair, unacceptable, and, yes, ridiculous, the hostility of part of the Ferrari fanbase toward the Spaniard is.

For some, Carlos Sainz is a sort of Pandora’s box, that vessel from Greek mythology containing all the world’s evils kept separate from humanity until it was opened. “It is raining? Blame it on the government!” used to be the saying. Today, it seems Carlos Sainz’s name could replace that of political authority.

The Spanish driver committed a significant “sin” and has since faced absurd accusations: he joined Ferrari to play second fiddle but became, in practice, a driver free to race because his overall performance level was not so far from the one expressed by his Maranello teammate Charles Leclerc. Let’s set the record straight: in terms of raw speed, Charles Leclerc is and remains faster than Carlos Sainz. There can be no doubt about this, and the numbers speak for themselves, especially in terms of qualifying laps, where pure speed comes to the forefront.

But a driver is not just about that. An effective driver must possess other attributes in their technical arsenal: strategic vision, the ability to read the moment of the race, adaptability to imperfect cars, and unfortunately there has been plenty of that for Ferrari, skill in guiding engineers’ technical development, and many other elements needed to fight for victory in Formula 1.

Carlos Sainz possesses all these qualities and has proven it during his four years with the Italian side. The numbers are plain to see and cannot be disputed even by the most extreme haters, those who in recent days have been showing the worst of themselves on the usual social networks, public forums turned into outlets for questionable opinions that should make their authors ashamed.

Many laugh in a completely foolish manner at the “downgrade” the Spaniard supposedly made by going to Williams for the 2025 Formula 1 championship. Probably, Carlos Sainz has been a victim of his own technical caliber. Someone like him would have been very useful for a top team like Red Bull, though not to Max Verstappen, who prefers to have a Sergio Pérez or a Liam Lawson by his side rather than someone with high-level technical competence and mental resilience. For the Dutchman it is better to race alongside a subordinate knight than a structured and challenging driver. And it seems that team principal Christian Horner is willing to accept this situation in order to keep his star driver happy, despite the fact that in 2024 Red Bull was out of the battle for the World Constructors’ Championship due to the extremely poor performance of the Mexican driver.
Mercedes also considered the Spaniard, but his candidacy was dismissed not due to a professional shortfall, but because they decided to focus on an internal investment, the young Italian driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli, for a transitional year like 2025. In short, Carlos Sainz was caught up in circumstances and had to choose a noble team in decline, but one with solid ambitions and the potential to slowly climb back up, possibly leveraging the regulatory overhaul in the 2026 Formula 1 season.

The Spanish driver performed well at Ferrari but had to give up his seat to a seven-time Formula 1 world champion, an opportunity which the top management of the Maranello team could not afford to pass up. Carlos Sainz became a casualty of the new direction: Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has always been very close to Charles Leclerc, having mentored him, and has long-standing ties to Lewis Hamilton, whose career he followed from the start.

This does not mean that the relationship between the French manager and the Spanish driver was compromised, far from it. Letting Carlos Sainz go at the end of the 2024 Formula 1 campaign was a painful decision that could have caused internal tensions at Ferrari. If this did not happen, it is also thanks to Carlos Sainz’s professionalism, as he consistently prioritized the Maranello team’s welfare.

In popular discourse, however, the narrative suggests that Carlos Sainz was self-serving. And why? Because in certain situations, he raced, battling with his Ferrari teammate. That is what a professional driver does, especially in a context where the team principal allows freedom to duel. This is an obvious fact that some keyboard warriors have chosen to ignore in their far-fetched reconstructions.

Why all this hostility? There isn’t a single answer. It is hard to decipher the psychological dynamics of fans, driven more by violent impulses than by rationality. Perhaps Carlos Sainz is paying the price for the “original sin” of being chosen by former Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto, who selected him to replace Sebastian Vettel when it was believed the German driver would in fact be offered a contract renewal with the Maranello team.

The current Audi executive is another figure who faces harsh criticism, some of which is justified. For a segment of the Ferrari fanbase, often excessively divisive, the Spaniard’s arrival seemed to displace a red legend like Sebastian Vettel, and this has always rubbed some the wrong way.

Yet Carlos Sainz’s story in red is that of a great professional who performed with his highs and the usual setbacks every driver faces throughout their motorsport career. Mistakes and missteps were not absent, but Carlos Sainz was always close to Charles Leclerc, both on and off the track. Seeing a driver so committed to the Ferrari cause being treated so crudely is painful and an affront to reason.

Free yourselves from this prejudice and enjoy Ferrari’s progress, giving due credit to a driver who helped write a few pages of the Prancing Horse’s illustrious history. A history that will always transcend the individuals who built it, whether their names are Michael Schumacher, Carlos Sainz, Charles Leclerc, Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton, or any other driver who, now or in the future, embraces the Ferrari cause.