F1 | Sainz reveals that he initially found it hard to keep up with Leclerc's "crazy pace" at the start of the season
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz has talked about how he had to adapt his driving style so that he could match Charles Leclerc's "crazy pace". The Spaniard who arrived at the Scuderia at the beginning of this year managed to outperform his highly rated team leader, by finishing fifth in the drivers standings, two places ahead of the Monegasque.
Carlos Sainz has divulged into how much he had to adapt his driving style to this year’s Ferrari after seeing Charles Leclerc's "crazy pace" at the start of the season.
Sainz, who arrived at the Scuderia after two seasons at McLaren, had a challenging start to Ferrari with a best result of fifth at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. However, he was out-qualified three times by Leclerc in the first four races of the season.
But Sainz made a significant breakthrough in Monte Carlo after securing his first podium for Ferrari with second behind his former Toro Rosso teammate Max Verstappen. Sainz was back on the podium in Budapest and Sochi with a pair of third places before finishing his maiden campaign in red with a flourish after securing yet another third-place finish at the season finale in Yas Marina.
The fruits of Sainz's labour were a fifth-place finish in the drivers’ championship with 164.5 points, his highest in Formula 1.
When speaking to Motorsport.com about his early-season struggles, Sainz talked in-depth about how he had to learn from Leclerc’s way of driving the Ferrari so that he could close the gap on his team leader.
“Since the moment I arrived to winter testing in Bahrain, I had a lot of things to learn from Charles, the way that he was driving the Ferrari in a particular way to be as quick and as fast as he’s being all year long, I’ve had to adapt myself [to it], I had to copy a lot of the stuff that I was seeing on the data.”
“Sometimes it was difficult to believe that it was possible to do that, and it was so crazy quick that it was actually a bit shocking. But little by little, adapting and trying to learn from him, I managed to get to a good level.”
In spite of having his most successful Formula 1 season to date, Sainz isn’t resting on his laurels and is looking to use the winter break to work with Leclerc so that he and the Monegasque can become better drivers in 2022.
“There’s still things that when we will go into the winter break, he’s much stronger than me in certain areas. We will exchange some information and we will try and both become better drivers learning from each other. It’s a great competition to have, and a great teammate to have, apart from being a super cool guy to have as a teammate.”
