Four strong years for Sainz at Ferrari

December 22, 2024

in Racing

Reading Time: 3 mins read

Carlos Sainz Jnr said farewell to Ferrari yesterday as he prepares to swap red for blue next year at Williams.

But although Ferrari chose to move Sainz aside, they can hardly be dissatisfied with the job he has done alongside Leclerc over his four seasons there.

Sainz narrowly out-scored Leclerc in their first season together as team mates and led him into the final race of 2023. All told, he’s scored 89% of Leclerc’s points tally over a four-year stretch, despite missing a race this year due to appendicitis.

He rebounded from that setback in superb fashion, winning on his return in Melbourne. Before the year was over Sainz grabbed a second valedictory victory for the team he was leaving, showing Leclerc a clean pair of heels in Mexico.

Sainz on Leclerc clashed on-track at times

As in previous seasons, there were occasions where the pair met each other on-track and the team had to manage the fall-out, such as in Spain. Ferrari dropped the ball on that front during the Las Vegas Grand Prix, while questionable editing of the radio messages broadcast by FOM made Sainz look like a bad guy, when he wasn’t.

As reflected by the season summaries, it would be wrong to suggest Sainz consistently had the upper hand over his team mate. Leclerc’s qualifying edge remained intact and he usually had the race pace to back it up. No one could seriously suggest Ferrari let the wrong guy go.

Sainz’s core performance metrics clearly don’t measure up as well as his points score did. Still, he likely represents considerably better value for money than his team mate, never mind his predecessor, whom Leclerc thrashed in 2020. Leclerc could also learn a lot from how Sainz and his race engineer respond to variable weather conditions.

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It’s not hard to see why team principal Frederic Vasseur felt he couldn’t turn down the opportunity to sign Lewis Hamilton when he had the chance. But it does beg a couple of questions.

First, with the likely exception of Max Verstappen, would Sainz have lost his place to any other driver on the grid? On the strength of these performances he didn’t deserve to.

Second, what more could Red Bull have needed in a partner for Verstappen, which Sainz apparently didn’t have? Their refusal to rehire their former driver despite the quality of his recent performances says a lot about their priorities.