In his first season dressed in red, Carlos Sainz Jr. managed to beat Charles Leclerc in a totally surprising way, as nobody expected the rookie to defeat the driver who had dethroned four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel in the Italian team.
Taking into account their results in their first campaign as team-mates and also that the cars were going to be completely new in 2022, it seemed that whatever experience advantage Leclerc had over Sainz at Ferrari was going to quickly evaporate.
However, from the beginning of the course, the differences between the two in favor of the Monegasque were surprising and, nine races later, close to reaching the halfway point, it seems that the Spanish rider still hasn’t found a way to get close to his teammate’s pace.
At the moment, the difference in points between the two is lower than what the sensations say, after Leclerc abandoned due to reliability failures in Barcelona and Baku when he was leading both races, Sainz is only 24 points behind, despite this, Some experts and ex-pilots of the category do not see the possibility of a comeback by the Madrilenian.
Nico Rosberg, speaking to Sky Sports F1 , spoke about Carlos Sainz’s situation and said that he did not possess the necessary qualities to join the list of world champions in motorsport’s top category, at least for the time being.
“He has everything to be a good and decent Ferrari driver, but at the moment he doesn’t have it to be a world champion because actually Leclerc has performed better, he has really outperformed him in every race this year. “.
“So I think he still needs, at the moment, to progress to be at the same level as Leclerc. He’s still a bit far, which is a bit surprising after seeing last year,” declared the 2016 world champion with Mercedes.
Looking for an explanation for Sainz’s lack of pace compared to his teammate, Rosberg explained that it could be due to the nature of the new ground effect cars and the adaptation time of each other.
“But of course the car is completely different [from 2021], so maybe it’s just a matter of him taking longer to adjust to everything,” the German concluded.
With 13 grand prix still to be played, it is true that no one can be considered defeated yet, but looking at the classification and especially the sensations, it seems somewhat complicated for the Madrid native to turn the tables in 2022 , and not only in reference to Leclerc, but also to the current and solid leader of the championship, Max Verstappen.
