F1’s Carlos Sainz embraces final races as a Ferrari driver: “No one can take that away”

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MONZA, Italy — Carlos Sainz did not shy away from admitting that the weekend of the Italian Grand Prix will be emotional.

The week before Ferrari’s home grand prix is ​​one of the busiest for Sainz and his team, who face extra pressure to perform. It can be easy to get caught up in the day-to-day work: marketing, media and sponsorship commitments, engineering meetings and greeting fans, to name a few. Hundreds of people wait just outside the gates of the Ferrari drivers’ hotel, he says, to get a photo, an autograph or just to cheer for them.

Going into weekends like this, racing at Monza, Sainz tries to be more present.

“More often than not, I probably end up in a loop where you just think that what you’re living is normal, because it feels normal and normal now after four years of being a Ferrari driver,” Sainz said. The Athletics. “It’s very easy to take everything for granted and think that having all those people there is normal, that the race in Monza is normal, that it becomes work and it becomes routine.”

But his perspective on weekends like this can change into appreciation. After all, Sainz turned 30 recently. He spent 10 years on the grid, and the Singapore Grand Prix will mark his 200th career grand prix. He joined the Formula 1 grid in 2015 and became a Ferrari driver in 2021. He secured his first pole position and victory with the Prancing Horse, amassing five pole positions, 21 podium finishes and three wins over the four seasons with the Maranello-based crew. . And at season’s end, Sainz will close this chapter and go to Grove, England, to join Williams.

But for now, he’s focused on where his feet are.

“Going to as many races as we do these days, it’s very easy to feel that everything feels very routine,” he continued of the Italian GP weekend. “So I try to pull myself out of that feeling and try to be really grateful, and always try to tell myself what Carlos, when he was 11, 12, 13 years old, would have thought.

“If you told him that now I would be living these moments, I’m sure he wouldn’t believe it, and he would enjoy it and try to take it in as much as possible.”

Weathering a “roller coaster” season.

Sainz describes himself as a “short-term thinker”, focusing on the next race or year. Becoming a Ferrari driver is a dream for most – if not all – competitors in the sport, as it is one of the most successful F1 teams.

Competing for Toro Rosso (now known as RB), he formed a good relationship with the Italian mechanics and engineers. He said, “I knew they had put in a good word about me to the Italian engineers at Ferrari because they normally fly together because the bases are only an hour away from each other. And then I remember thinking, maybe one day I can be a Ferrari driver.”

It happened in 2021, four years after his Toro Rosso chapter. One of his first memories with Ferrari took place at a special track for the team and company – Fiorano Circuit. It is the eighth track where Ferrari tests the cars, located near the factory in Maranello. Sainz remembers putting on the red suit and jumping into the red car, his father (a well-known and successful rally car champion) watching on.

“I saw him, a small tear falling on his eye when they told me when I left the pits in Fiorano for my first set lap in red,” said Sainz. “That’s a memory I’ll never forget.”

Sainz’s most successful seasons occurred during this Ferrari chapter, the first top team he competed for. The 2024 season marked the last of his two-year deal, and he thrives on stability. Before Christmas last winter, Sainz expressed that his priority was to stay with the Rampage. There seemed to be little reason to doubt that Ferrari would extend his and Charles Leclerc’s contracts, keeping together one of the sport’s most consistently competitive driver duos.

But then February 1, 2024 came.

News has emerged that Lewis Hamilton would join the Italian team in 2025, replacing Sainz and throwing the Spaniard’s future into question. He became the hottest name on the driver market, but the stupid season lasted through a large part of 2024. To this day, Sainz continues to describe this year as a “roller coaster”, touching the maximum of victory in Australia (16 days after surgery). for appendicitis) and find out his future in the sport.

“What I’ve been through this year is not ideal to perform at your highest level as an athlete,” Sainz said at Monza. “I think that every driver who wants to perform at his highest level wants to have his future sorted and not have to worry about it, while it has to perform in a Formula 1 season, in a team that already has a lot of pressure and a lot. of attention and a high voltage environment like (at) Ferrari.”

But Sainz continues to turn up every weekend, knowing that Hamilton will replace him at the end of the season. Looking back on the campaign, he said he was proud of how he handled the first half of the season “considering everything I had to go through and how relatively well the season went.

“But I believe there is a lap time in the athlete when everything is a little calmer.”

Sainz says it requires one’s full attention and effort to be competitive in this sport. He pours all his training, time and thinking into racing and feels that has helped him win races and perform at the level he has in recent years.

“That’s why I say that’s so critical, too, to make sure you have everything under control.”

“No difficulties” as Williams era signs

Williams’ pursuit of Sainz began at the end of 2023 at the Abu Dhabi GP, team principal James Vowles confirmed at the end of July after announcing that the Spaniard would join the Grove-based team. Vowles’ message to Sainz remained the same.

“From the beginning, I gave him warts and everything: ‘Here’s what’s going to happen, we’re going backwards, here’s why, here’s what we’re investing in, here’s what’s coming, here’s why I’m excited about this project. – and it’s your choice, very much, if you want to be a part of it,” said Vowles. “‘But I know we will have success in the future, and I know it will cost us in the short term.’ And I’m sure that honesty and transparency has paid off.”

Sainz has learned during his F1 career to trust his gut about people. It dates back to his McLaren days, where he secured two podium finishes in the same number of seasons. He said, “I remember I never enjoyed competing as much as I did my years in McLaren with Lando (Norris), with Andrea Stella, and we had (had) a very strong team. And I remember leaving that team thinking , that I want to go to Ferrari and perform there, but I think this team will succeed in the future.”

Three years later, Sainz was right. McLaren is challenging Red Bull for the constructors’ championship, the gap sitting at just eight points. The people component and belief in future success carried weight when deciding to join the rebuilding Williams team. Something that motivates him is how he will be able to help the project progress.

“I want to feel listened to. I want to feel that I can help,” said Sainz in Zandvoort. “And this, in a historic team like Williams, when they have a clear vision and super commitment to bring the team back to the front with very clear investment partners, it’s something that was important to me.”

Sainz may go to an English team next season, but he is not completely closing the door to Ferrari. And it’s no surprise. He said their relationship had not broken down – the split was “circumstantial”.

“The fact that I will be leaving at the end of the year, I think there is nothing really wrong with me and Ferrari,” he continued. “A seven-time world champion happened to want to come to Ferrari in the last years of his career, and I had to move aside and obviously leave my space to Lewis. I have no difficulties with that.

“I probably have another five to 10 years of career ahead of me. So why would I close the door on a possible return?”

“Always a Ferrari driver”

As Sainz scaled the pit wall and peeked through the wire fence, the rosso corsa-clad crowds cheered. Leclerc won the Italian Grand Prix that weekend, but it was possible in part thanks to Sainz.

Sainz critically helped Leclerc and Ferrari win on home turf by holding off Piastri. The Australian pitted on lap 38 of 53, gaining quickly as the race went on. But for him to catch Leclerc, Piastri needed to pass several backmarkers and Sainz. After the race, he said he knew the McLaren driver had won on him and what was at stake.

“I did my best to slow him down for one lap. Then obviously, he was a second and a half faster at that stage, so around Monza, it’s not like you can do much more than one lap.”

It was finally enough. Sainz did not finish on the podium, but Piastri ended his day in second, 2.664 seconds from Leclerc.

“It was an incredible weekend for me. I enjoyed it a lot. It’s a shame not to be on the podium today. At the same time, I feel today was a bit of a coin toss whether to stay out or not, adjust,” said Sainz. “Charles nailed it together with the team. With me, if we wanted to be in that fight, we would probably need to stay on the train with the cars in front after the first pit stop. We just lost the chance of a podium there.

“Honestly, very happy to see the team win here this weekend. I would like to be up there with the podium with Carlos, but I think he deserves the win more than anyone today, so congratulations.”

The Spaniard may leave the team at the end of the season, but at least part of the Ferrari faithful will likely continue his career. Sebastian Vettel once said, “Everyone is a Ferrari fan. Even if they say they are not, they are a Ferrari fan.” The same could be said of past Ferrari drivers. They may not wear the rosso corso race suit but will always be a part of Ferrari.

“There are many examples on the grid or in the past, where every time there was a Ferrari driver who obviously also had success, but also a good relationship with the tifosi, then he was remembered and was treated very well by the tifosi all over the world, wherever they go,” said Sainz. “That’s why I’ve always said that once you’re a Ferrari driver, no one can take that away from you the pleasure of doing it for the last four years, and yes, I’m going to enjoy it as much as possible.”

Top photo: Sipa USA