Carlos Sainz is showing an incredible performance with the Scuderia sitting comfortably on P5 in the drivers standings.
2022 is turning out to be the best season for Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard has already scored 156 points and sits on P5 comfortably. The points could have been much more if it wasn’t for Ferrari’s reliability ruining his races.
Ever since his maiden win in Silverstone, the 27-year-old has performed even more consistently.
Nevertheless, the way Carlos Sainz have performed throughout the season, many people are acclaiming him to be the lead driver. 1996 World Champion Damon Hill even exclaimed the Spaniard to be a “true team leader”.
Carlos Sainz has gained attention on the way he communicates with his team and makes important decisions on multiple occasions, all on his own. He seems much calmer and composed in pressure situations. Silverstone and Monaco are the best examples for this.
Although, the latest Hungarian Grand Prix was not a good outing for the Spaniards.
On the other hand, his counterpart Charles Leclerc seems to lose his cool under pressure on numerous occasions. Although one can argue that his races were mostly ruined by the strategies and reliability factor. Nevertheless, we haven’t seen Leclerc make any huge and important strategy call while in his car.
All great drivers make strategic calls from time to time. From the likes of Lewis Hamilton to Max Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel, etc.
Anyways, this has given birth to rumors around Sainz which claim that the Spaniard is now the ‘lead driver’.
Ferrari racing director responds to rumors around Carlos Sainz as the ‘lead driver’
When Ferrari racing director Laurent Mekies was asked if Carlos Sainz’s decision-making made him the team’s lead driver. To this Laurent Mekies responded that team still treats both the drivers as ‘equal’:
“So you are very right in saying that Carlos has had three extremely strong weekends; Silverstone, Austria, France. We are very, very happy with that. It did not show up so much on the final race classifications besides Silverstone because we had other things to deal with.”
“But you are very right in saying that he has made great progress since the start of the seasons. We made no secret at the beginning of the year that naturally the car was not suiting him very well,”
added Mekies
“We had to work a lot with him, with his engineers, with everybody back in Maranello to make sure we can give him something he is more comfortable with. And these things take time. And slowly, it seems that we are heading towards the right direction, which is another great sign for the team and the way we interact. So I think that’s where it is.”
“Does it make somebody a leader or not? No, it doesn’t, it is not what makes a leader or not; We know we have two very, very good drivers. We treat them in a way that we can maximise our championship positions and we want them as fast as they can possibly be,”
concluded Mekies.
Anyways, many believe that treating both drivers as equal might be affecting the performance of the team. Not having a clear number one to prioritize in a race can have bad results for the team. It can be seen as Ferrari let both the drivers fight their way on multiple occasions like Austria, Silverstone, etc.
This has let Max Verstappen and Red Bull close in on multiple occasions from a gap much more quickly.
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