Why Sainz is key to Ferrari achieving its chairman's F1 goals

Ferrari has almost nothing left to fight for over the remainder of the 2022 Formula 1 season. After wins for Charles Leclerc in Bahrain and Australia that offered so much promise, genuine shots at the drivers’ and constructors’ championship crowns have been snuffed out through engine unreliability, crashes, poor pitstops, silly strategy, and Red Bull’s potency.

Now that Imola and Monza have come and gone, there’s not even the consolation prize of a home victory. What’s more, prior to the summer break, team principal Mattia Binotto reckoned there was “no reason” why the Scuderia couldn’t win all remaining races. Now, it seems fair to ask whether a Ferrari driver will take to the top step of the podium again with six rounds to go as Max Verstappen chases his sixth win in succession this weekend in Singapore.

The big, big boss, Ferrari chairman John Elkann at least went some way to relieving the public pressure by saying in the lead up to the Italian Grand Prix earlier this month that the axe will not be swinging in the direction of Binotto. "We have great faith in Mattia and appreciate everything he and all our engineers have done,” he said. “Putting our trust in Binotto and his team was the right decision and it has paid off.” Very nice. But simultaneously, Elkann turned up the heat by adding, “with Charles Leclerc in pole position”, Ferrari “will” land both titles before 2026.

On the chassis and engine fronts, that seems plausible enough. A return of ground-effects has proved Ferrari can build a car capable of championship glory, even if the team wasn’t ready operationally to hit the heights, and of course the RB18 has since marched clear as the benchmark creation of the new era. As for the drivers, while a question mark might hang over Leclerc being an absolute equal of Verstappen, in the immediate quest to beat Red Bull and deliver on one-half of Elkann’s ambition, surely Carlos Sainz is something of a secret weapon.

As the tacit number two at his team and with the minimum level of expectation which that role requires, Sergio Perez has rightly been under scrutiny over recent races for his delivery of Alex Albon/Pierre Gasly/Daniil Kvyat demotion-spec drives. It is therefore only right to also dish out praise to Sainz for his recent upturn while occupying a similar role.

He started the campaign at a loss to tame the nervous F1-75’s twitchy back end, saying he preferred the temperament of the much less competitive 2021 machine. From the first four races, he was on average 0.59s slower in qualifying (taking Q1 for Imola before Sainz threw it off the road) than his team-mate, who turned in three pole positions. Spinning into the gravel in Australia as Leclerc dominated and then tangling with Daniel Ricciardo on the first lap at Imola certainly didn’t help matters.

Sainz's start to 2022 was inauspicious at best, but the Spanish driver has found scintillating form of late

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

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But wind on and ahead of a return to Marina Bay following its two-year absence, Sainz has come on song. Granted, the execution of his weekends has too often dabbled with being scruffy rather than outright stellar (see the Dutch GP), but where outright pace is concerned, he and Leclerc are now surely a driver combination operating at a level second only to the Mercedes duo.

From the most recent four races, covering Hungary to Italy, the qualifying gap is now in fact in Sainz’s favour, albeit by a little over a hundredth of a second. It is evidence to suggest that should the lead Ferrari be scuppered by grid penalties or any one of the team’s other maladies from 2022, Sainz stands a good chance of being able to step up and earn at least a visit to the rostrum.

“I think it's no secret that I have been a lot closer over one-lap pace, and I've been battling for a lot more pole positions and a lot better qualifying recently,” says the British GP victor of his progress.

“And also recently, race pace is a bit of a thing that I want to improve or keep improving, but at least the improvement that I've done with the car together with my engineers trying to get myself a bit more comfortable, trying to change a bit the driving towards what Charles was doing, and that was exploiting the car to a limit, has also been working well. I'm fighting a lot more and I'm in a much better place. My target is to finish the season strongly, to try and put myself in a good position going into next year.”

Of course, Sainz’s personal ambition is to emphatically prove he is top dog at Ferrari and ultimately use that as a springboard to title success. Regardless of whether that is realistic or not in the eyes of us onlookers, it’s far harder to dispute his current gains, outstanding intellect (see calculating strategy pros and cons from the cockpit during races) and the cordial intra-team relationship he and Leclerc have maintained. Those factors might just be the biggest boon in the team’s efforts to get close to matching the constructors’ part of Elkann’s lofty targets.

Among the "number two" drivers, Sainz's form relative to his team-mate has picked up

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images