In one of those nasty quirks of fate in motorsport, like Lewis Hamilton winning on three wheels 17 years before his 2020 British Grand Prix triumph, what happened to Carlos Sainz last weekend week was something similar.
When asked to give a message to the more than 120,000 fans who attended Silverstone on Sunday, the Spaniard recalled something in particular in his career in the youth categories: “Thank you to all of them, because it has always been a special place for me. “.
“First win here in Formula BMW in 2010, as well as pole position,” he told Jenson Button as he crossed the finish line. “And then all of a sudden 12 years later I achieved the exact same thing, but in Formula 1 with Ferrari.”
“So it’s a special place for me, and I thank all the fans for being part of it and cheering me on,” said the Spaniard after winning for the first time.
However, emotion played a trick on Sainz, something totally understandable after joining the select club of 112 winners in Formula 1, and that is that his first victory in Formula BMW at Silverstone in July 2010 was not his debut. on top of a podium, but it came eight weeks earlier, in Sepang, when he raced as a guest driver alongside his future Red Bull Academy teammate, Daniil Kvyat.
But he did get his first pole position on the track that gave birth to the highest category of motorsport, and turned that into a victory. However, what could have made Sainz not remember him well was that he was twice in first position that weekend, since two races were held in the Formula BMW round.
“Eurointernational driver Sainz took pole in his 13th single-seater event, but fell behind at the start and fell behind [Jack] Harvey,” Motorsport’s sister publication reported at the time. .com, Autosport.
“On the first lap he fell further behind in the Village, when the Dutchman, Robin Frijns passed him in his Josef Kaufmann Racing car. Sainz was a bit nervous, and left the door open in the Loop, losing position to Eifelland Racing of Facu Regalia”, he continued. “Meanwhile, Harvey was fending off Frijns, the championship leader, and Sainz was trying to remedy his first lap.”
“The Spaniard caught up with Regalia again and overtook him at Brooklands on lap six to secure the podium. The two leaders had broken away, leaving Sainz too far behind to do anything about it,” it read,
“His mood on the podium revealed that he knew he had made too many mistakes, and wasted pole position.”
Returning to the 2022 Formula 1 season, at the opening round in Bahrain, the Madrid native managed to finish second, behind his Ferrari teammate, Charles Leclerc, calling it “the most difficult weekend” with the team, despite the fact that it was the best result for the team since the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix, when they did a double with Sebastian Vettel.
That reflects Sainz’s continued strengths when it comes to self-criticism and fierce desire to improve, as was already evident on the Silverstone podium in 2010 . At present, he had a hard time adapting to the use of the brakes and power of the F1-75, especially because of the behavior of the rear, but he has worked to modify the set-up and improve in those areas to the point of modifying his piloting style. That has been one of the reasons why in Canada he was able to break his win drought, which had to wait two more weeks.
Returning to the comparison with 2010 , he had the opportunity to recover in the second round, as happened with the restart in 2022 with the accident of Guanyu Zhou. At that time it was said that “Sainz seemed like a different driver”, which is what happened with his second attempt from pole position.
“He made a much better start, though not enough to prevent Frijns from taking the lead,” David Addison wrote. “Instead of giving up, he dedicated himself to closing the gap on the leader, and passed at Brooklands on lap two, while Frijns fell to Harvey’s clutches,” it was narrated. “That fight allowed Sainz to get the victory.”
The Spaniard’s first victory was not easy at all, but as he reflected in the subsequent press conference, in which he entered with the journalists applauding, “he already had it”, and it is something that nobody can take away from him.
