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Carlos Sainz Jr has made a solid start to his Ferrari Formula 1 career, finishing eighth on debut in Bahrain then taking fifth place at Imola.
But he has been a step behind team-mate Charles Leclerc, and improving his qualifying form is the key to getting on level terms.
Given it’s early in the season and the fact Sainz is one of a group of experienced drivers who are playing catch-up after heavily restricted pre-season running, his qualifying performances so far are far from terrible. Doubly so given Leclerc is one of the best qualifiers in F1, capable of consistently delivering breathtaking on-the-limit laps.
In Bahrain, Sainz qualified eighth, four places and 0.537s behind Leclerc. At Imola, he failed to reach Q3 and started 11th having lapped 0.391s behind Leclerc in Q2.
His race pace has been stronger and in Bahrain he was an average of 0.156s slower than Leclerc on his way to eighth. Sainz described that weekend as “exceeding my expectations”, although he did admit to taking a conservative approach in the early laps in particular.
“I know how to do a quick corner in the Ferrari, I just need to know how to do 10 quick corners in the same lap” :: Carlos Sainz Jr
Imola was tougher, with Sainz just over half-a-second a lap (excluding his offs) away from Leclerc’s times during the wet first half of the race, but then following Leclerc home in fifth place after having his losses eliminated by the red flag and showing better form in the dry conditions.
So it’s clear that qualifying is the key battleground.
“I know he’s a qualifying expert and he looks really at home in the Ferrari, like he knows exactly what to expect from the car in Q2 and Q3 and hybrid conditions,” said Sainz when asked by The Race about the challenge of closing on Leclerc in qualifying.
“He’s a very, very good driver, but at the same time if there’s something that I’ve seen in these first two races it’s that I’m not slower than him in any of the corners really. I know that if I put the laps together I can be up there with him.
“So it’s now a matter of focusing on how to put those laps together, what does he do and what can I do to get better at putting those laps together? Or maybe I just need a bit more time and more experience, let’s see.
“But I’m encouraged about what I see on the data and for me it’s more a matter of time.”
Sainz isn’t afraid to back his qualifying potential. At Imola, he was 0.175s off his theoretical ideal lap based on combining his best three sectors. That would only account for just under half of his deficit to Leclerc, but Sainz argues that if you break the lap down corner by corner, there was more pace there.
“I felt like I did every corner at least once during those four laps of quali [in Q1 and Q2 at Imola] as quick as I should. The issue is that I didn’t really do a single lap of putting all the corners together and I left two or three tenths on the table.
“The speed is there. I know how to do a quick corner in the Ferrari, I just need to know how to do 10 quick corners in the same lap. It’s a matter of time and experience to get to know how to put that together.”
A gap to Leclerc of a quarter of a second at this stage of the season, which would be the margin if we take Sainz’s three tenths lost figure at face value, would represent a decent start to the season.
The key now is if Sainz can not only string things together to hit that pace consistently, but then build on it.
That won’t be easy. While Sainz is a good qualifier and certainly raised his game on Saturdays in 2020, Leclerc is as tough a benchmark as there is. But if Sainz can ensure he starts in similar territory to Leclerc, he can certainly cause him some problems in the race.
“That’s what I’m talking about: just knowing how the car’s going to react to which angle and being super-precise on the angle of attack” :: Carlos Sainz Jr
And while Ferrari signed Sainz to be a strong, consistent support act to Leclerc rather than a leader – something team boss Mattia Binotto denies but is clear if you read between the lines of everything he has said – you can have no doubt that the Spaniard is determined to become more than that.
Familiarity with the car will certainly help. Sainz has talked of how surprised he is by just how different teams’ cars extract pace in varying ways, so he still needs to get on top of how to get the most from the tools available to him at Ferrari.
But at Imola, he also pointed to the reaction of the mechanical platform over kerbs as significant in his losses.
“In particular, maybe it was a bit the kerb riding, how the car will react to the kerb depending on the angle I attacked it at,” Sainz said when asked by The Race where the lack of consistency manifested itself in qualifying.
“I was caught out a couple of times in all the chicanes by touching the kerb at a different angle and getting out of position. There are very long straights after those kerbs and I was missing one or two tenths on those straights after because of that.
“Basically, that’s what I’m talking about – just knowing how the car’s going to react to which angle and being super-precise on the angle of attack to know that on the next straight I’m not going to lose that tenth and a half that I just made up.
“I’m pretty sure where that lap time is and how it can be extracted.”
Sainz has consistently shown the capacity to improve during his F1 career and already looks at home at Ferrari.
But whether he can fulfil what will doubtless be his own, private, objective of asserting himself over Leclerc could depend on ensuring he’s not giving away track position in qualifying.
To match Leclerc in qualifying is a huge task for any driver, but Sainz will have been successful if he can even get consistently close.
So far, there are some promising signs and there is more to come, but he won’t have done anything to make Leclerc too worried on that front just yet, even if his Sunday form – at least in dry conditions – is coming on well.
