Despite Max Verstappen’s Thumping Dominance, Charles Leclerc & Carlos Sainz Shamelessly Bond Over Fatal Mistakes

The Tifosi’s current-favorite duo of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc have gotten to a point in their Ferrari careers that they have resigned to dissing their own driving skills. It would’ve come off as light and breezy had their mistakes not affected their chances in either championship, but they did. Even so, they kept up the banter, much to the amusement of fans and, most likely, their competitors.

In 2022, Ferrari had a car that had the potential to fight for the championships. But due to mechanical errors, bad strategy calls, and, to a large extent, driver errors, it lost out to Red Bull and Max Verstappen by a considerable margin. And this season, the car isn’t anywhere close to Red Bull’s. It’s difficult to figure out whether it’s for the good or the bad. But the Ferrari duo seems to have accepted their past errors and the current situation. Now they are bonding over their mistakes.

Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc bond over shared trauma

Every year, before F1 releases its game, they make drivers guess each other’s ratings. And this year, Sainz and Leclerc were made to guess each other’s. A driver’s rating card has four parameters—experience, racecraft, awareness, and pace. Their overall rating is a weighted average of the four, with their pace given extra importance. And while putting a number to each of these parameters came the question of the Ferrari duo’s individual awareness.

Read More: Despite Ferrari’s Failures, Charles Leclerc Given a Major Reality Check on the Mistake That Costs him the F1 Championship

Driver’s awareness. F1 defines it as “a measure of the driver’s ability to avoid incidents and penalties in the race. It drops the more frequently any penalty taken is due to the driver’s error.” When Carlos explained this to Charles, his immediate reaction was just to say, “Oh!” as if he had just put two and two together and realized that their awareness wasn’t something to brag about.

If that monosyllabic word wasn’t enough, Carlos had to ask what must’ve been running in Charles’ mind—“In the race, or in practice and qualis? ‘Cause practices and qualis we both-“ He didn’t need to say more for everyone to imply what he meant because, over the past two seasons, the Ferrari garage has had to fix up the cars after crashes and bear the brunt of post-qualifying and race penalties more times that it would like to admit.

While Sainz has had considerably fewer incidents during races than Charles, it’s not something to write home about. After they both had their fair share of laughter while discussing awareness, Leclerc just put it out there: “We didn’t have the best awareness.“

They rated each other accordingly. Leclerc wasn’t surprised to see an 85 to his name. However, it definitely surprised him to see an 81 against Sainz’s, considering he has made fewer errors in the past. Either way, the two had fun pulling each other’s legs. And while they were dissing each other in Ferrari, the Red Bull drivers were bonding over how well they’ve performed in the past few seasons.

Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez compare their ratings

Red Bull’s 2022 season was one of its best in the sport. But if that was one of its best, 2023 is destined to be better. So when they were asked to rate each other, they were finding it difficult to rate the other in lower numbers, and rightfully so. They are both proven race craftsmen with good pace (extremely good, in Max’s case). And their awareness is pretty good, too, apart from Checo’s unusual crashes occasionally. But everything considered, they were both reasonably happy with their overall rating. Verstappen even said that Checo should’ve been rated higher.

While the on-track tension seems to have gotten to at least one of them (ahem, Checo), it’s good to see that there isn’t any tension boiling over off the track, and they still seem to have mutual respect for one another.

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With F123 set to release on 16th June, are you excited to try the new game out? And, more importantly, do you agree with the drivers’ ratings this year?