Carlos Sainz reflects on his season

Carlos Sainz is experiencing a season of ups and downs. The Spanish driver has shone on several occasions and managed to reach the podium in 7 Grand Prix races, a record for him. It is also in this championship that he achieved his first victory.

However, the season is far from what the driver had hoped for. He has had four retirements, two due to his own mistakes and two others because of technical issues, and he has had to endure his team’s poor strategic plans.

Carlos Sainz also struggled at the beginning of the season. With 2 retirements in his first 4 races, the driver was unable to tame his car right away.

I found it very frustrating that after so many good years in Formula 1, I arrived at my first year with a competitive car and it’s the car that I have the most difficulty driving.

Spanish has still experienced a continuous progression throughout the season. It is currently in 5th place in the championship, only 16 points behind Russell and 32 points behind 2nd place.

The progress has been enormous throughout the season and I managed to reach a much higher level.

During the season, the driver even dreamed of a championship title before retiring in Austria and Verstappen getting too far ahead by winning every Grand Prix. The series of good performances is also too minimal for the Spaniard.

But just as my hopes for a title were starting to rise, I had that retirement in Austria which completely shattered that positive trend. Since then, there’s been the penalty in France, the difficult race in Hungary, the podium at Spa. Even though I’ve been much more competitive since Canada and Silverstone, it has always been difficult to achieve a series of good results.

Carlos Sainz is also pleased to see Ferrari’s competitiveness evolving and is already looking forward to the 2023 season. He also hopes that Ferrari will be able to contend for the title next year and continue to win even more races.

What makes me the happiest is that it seems like the team has reached a new level in terms of raw performance, and this year we had an excellent car.

We have had great opportunities to win races. The team is competitive again and I know that if I raise my level, there will be many opportunities in the future.

We are going to improve, continue to improve as a team, and make sure we also reach a level where we win championships.

« But it means that we have to be incredibly high-performing, all of us together, and I will do my best to help the team and myself reach this level.

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The Spanish driver has two weeks to relax and rest before the next Grand Prix which will take place in Singapore. He will then be able to aim for victory on the track.