The 2021 season was full of many fights again, but not just for the drivers’ and constructors' championship lead between Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Red Bull and Mercedes. But also, for third place in the constructors’ championship and to be the best of the rest (fifth place in the drivers' championship). We are talking about Ferrari, McLaren, Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris. Let's remember that, in 2020, Ferrari had a big drop in terms of performance, the Italian team used to be fighting for the victory of the Grand Prix, however, in 2020 they fell behind Renault, Racing Point, McLaren, among others. It was a deplorable year for the Italians, however, in 2021 they have been able to redeem themselves and have managed to position themselves in third place in the constructors' championship, defeating their main rival, McLaren. On the other hand, the British team failed to defend their third place achieved in 2020, but what a season they had. In addition, McLaren was the only team that managed to get a 1-2 all season this year. It was a fight that was solved until the last race of the year, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

For its part, Ferrari had a new driver, coming from McLaren, Carlos Sainz arrived in Maranello to be the teammate of Charles Leclerc. At the start of the season, the Spaniard failed to perform well and seemed to be struggling to find pace and balance in his SF21. Nonetheless, Sainz began to take shape and found himself comfortable in his new car, managing to finish the season like the best of the rest. Let us remember that the "best of the rest" is the driver who finishes in fifth position in the drivers' championship behind the 4 drivers of the 2 leading teams (Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez for Red Bull and Lewis Hamilton with Valtteri Bottas for Mercedes). In this piece, we compare the qualifying session performance of the two Ferrari drivers, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, as well as analysing their final race position.

Qualifying session

There was a total of 22 Grand Prix, where Charles Leclerc managed to obtain a better qualifying position 13 times, while Carlos Sainz managed to be ahead of the Monegasque on 9 occasions. Leclerc's best starting position was pole position, achieved twice (Monaco and Azerbaijan Grand Prix). On the other hand, the best position achieved by the Spaniard was P2, in the Russian Grand Prix. On the other side of the coin, Charles' worst position was P15, obtained only once (Russian Grand Prix), while Carlos' was also P15, but he obtained it 3 times (Hungarian, Turkish and Saudi Arabian Grand Prix). Charles Leclerc's average position in the qualifying session was 6th, while Carlos Sainz's was 8th. The Monegasque managed to advance to Q3 in 18 races, while Sainz managed to advance to that phase in 15 races. Lastly, on average, Carlos Sainz was 0.105 seconds faster than Charles Leclerc. This is because, in the Russian Grand Prix, the Spanish driver was 5,960 seconds faster than the Monegasque.

Final race position

Leclerc achieved a better final race position compared to his teammate in 14 Grands Prix, while Sainz achieved it in 8. The best position of both drivers was P2, Charles achieved it in the British Grand Prix, Sainz at the Monaco Grand Prix. Neither of the two Ferrari drivers got a victory. The Monegasque driver managed to step on the podium in just one race (British Grand Prix), while the Spaniard managed it in 4 races (Monaco, Hungarian, Russian and Abu Dhabi Grand Prix). An extremely good fact for Carlos Sainz was that he managed to finish absolutely all the races of the season, that is, he did not have any single DNF (retirement), while Leclerc had 1 (we are not counting the Monaco Grand Prix since the Monegasque did not achieve even to start the race). Charles Leclerc finished the season in P7 in the drivers' championship, with a total of 159 points, while Carlos Sainz finished in P5, being better of the rest, with 164.5 points (5.5 points more than Leclerc).