F1 News: Carlos Sainz- “I Expect Charles [Leclerc] to Help Me.”

What happens when you sign two top drivers who are super competitive for the same team? Not the best for the team, like we’ve seen in the past. Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna became rivals and so did Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton at McLaren. In recent times, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell also showed glimpses of power struggles. But Ferrari also has two very good drivers, but hardly any sour moments between them. And now, Carlos Sainz expects Charles Leclerc to help him. 

On the 1st of February, Ferrari announced that they’ve signed Lewis Hamilton for the 2025 season, resulting in Carlos Sainz being left without a seat for 2025 as of now. Regardless, Carlos Sainz still has the 2024 season to showcase his talents and impress the other teams looking for a driver. And with Ferrari promising a lot with the SF24, it might be a good time for the Spaniard to step up and show his mettle.

Carlos Sainz did step his game up in 2023 and rose up, out of Charles Leclerc’s shadow becoming the only non-Red Bull driver on the grid to win a race. However, despite all the talk of the No.1 driver at Ferrari, Carlos Sainz in a recent interview talked about working together with Charles Leclerc and helping each other out during the season to make sure the team scores the maximum points. 

According to Formu1a.uno, Carlos Sainz said, “I have always been a team man, exemplary in this sense, for whatever team I have led. I will definitely help Charles if it is necessary, in the same way I expect Charles to help me.” This was in response when Sainz was asked about a possible confrontation with Leclerc. This implies that despite Ferrari sacking Carlos Sainz, the Spaniard doesn’t have any bad blood against the team or his teammate. 

Read More: Charles Leclerc Sets Glaring Goal for 2024 as Lewis Hamilton Threatens Coveted Position

Despite all of this, Carlos Sainz has a positive outlook towards the 2024 F1 season as he talks about the SF24 being a more driveable and competitive car.

“Looking forward to driving the car”: Carlos Sainz’s thoughts on SF24

Ferrari came close to Red Bull in terms of performance toward the end of 2023. If the same pattern continues, we might see a title fight between the Red Bulls and the Scuderia. With Frederic Vasseur putting faith in the SF24, it’ll be interesting to see what the performance is like on track. Carlos Sainz also had a positive outlook toward the car and explained what was done over winter to make the car driveable.

Carlos Sainz said, “I’m looking forward to driving the car to see if it correlates with the feeling I had from the simulator, which is that it’s the step forward we all want. The aim is to have a car that’s more drivable and therefore able to run at a consistent race pace, as these are the basic requirements to fight for wins. We drivers have done our very best to give the engineers precise feedback and I’m sure the workforce in Maranello will have listened to our needs.”

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What do you think? Will Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have smooth sailing in 2024? Or Will there be bad blood between the two come the end of the season?