Leclerc or Sainz: who will be Ferrari's No. 1 driver?
It's about who becoming Ferrari's leading driver through the coming years. Why would it be Leclerc and why would it be Sainz?
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With a new line-up in Ferrari as Carlos Sainz became the man who replaced four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, the question that comes to mind is, will Carlos Sainz be Ferrari's lead driver?
What we all know is that traditionally, Ferrari has always had a clear number 1 and number 2 driver.
If we draw simple comparisons between these young drivers who are the next generation of the futuristic Formula one, Sainz Jr. is older than Leclerc around 3 years meaning he started before Leclerc in F1, in 2015, it was announced that the Spaniard would drive for Scuderia Toro Rosso (Alpha Tauri now) to drive next to Max Verstappen at the age of 21 while Leclerc debuted in F1 with Sauber F1 Team (Alfa Romeo today) in 2018 at the age of 21 too.
Although both drivers are talented with a great background in their debuted teams especially Leclerc who graduated from Ferrari Driver Academy as the Monegasque became the first academy member to graduate to Ferrari in 2019 to drive next to Sebastian Vettel.
Leclerc also gave Ferrari its first win since former driver Kimi Raikkonen's victory at the 2018 United States GP and the last win of Vettel in Belgium GP 2018.
Lewis Hamilton clearly rated Leclerc extremely highly last year when everyone was extremely surprised by his performers as he out-perform, out-qualify, and out-drive the German.
"I was trying to keep up with him but he was very strong. Ultimately he did a superb job," Hamilton said. "I look forward to seeing his growth and racing (against) him."
While Carlos's best results in his carer were with his maiden year and only with McLaren as he collected 96 points for the team plus, he took his maiden Formula One podium finish with third at the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix and finished 6th overall in 2019.
It’s hard to answer now at this stage but I think many signs pointing that Ferrari is going to favour Leclerc when the 2021 season begins. Although I believe that if the Spaniard shows a good performance such as what Leclerc did last year, there’s no reason the Scuderia would stop the new "matador" to become the leading driver.
When asked what kind of driver Ferrari would be getting, Carlos answered diplomatically speaking to Will Buxton on F1, the Spaniard said: “They are going to find an extremely hard-working guy”
“That will go to Italy, will spend a lot of time in Maranello”
“The same way I spent a lot of time at McLaren,”
“And I will try to build something special with Ferrari, the way I tried to build something special in McLaren.
“Apart from that, hopefully, a very quick driver and an incredibly motivated guy that is going to give it all for the Scuderia.”
