Carlos Sainz has been on the end of an extraordinary amount of bad luck this season having suffered three DNFs in nine races as of late June. Unfortunately for the Spaniard, the Ferrari he drives is turning out to have more gremlins in the engine than anyone could have imagined, with the sobering prediction being that things will only get worse before they improve for the Maranello-based team.
Further proof of this can be found in the outright Drivers’ Championship markets where Sainz is priced at long odds of 125/1 to win the title despite the season still yet to reach the halfway mark. As it stands, the 27-year-old is 73 points off first position but admittedly, there is still enough time to top the drivers’ standings at the end of the season. Even fans who feel that Sainz is the ultimate dark horse will be looking for a new customer offer that will award them free bets, rather than using their own funds. It is perhaps not even a case of saying stranger things have happened when in reality, there is all to play in the drivers’ championship over the next six months.
Assuming, however, Sainz can still win the 2022 title would be dismissing one crucial point; the Spaniard is still missing something, and his career stats back that up. What exactly it is is hard to pinpoint for certain. But after racing in 150 Grand Prix and not recording even a solitary win, you would be hard-pressed to say that Sainz has the X factor needed to thrive at the top of the sport.
Your day will come, @Carlossainz55 ❤️ pic.twitter.com/y0GMdq2vru
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) June 21, 2022
Yes, there’s an argument to be made about Sainz not always being in the best car after spells with Toro Rosso and McLaren before Mattia Binotto picked up the phone and offered him a contract with Ferrari. However, there are still times when you think that coming second would be harder than winning for Sainz but he somehow still manages to pass up the initiative even when in the strongest position.
The recent Canadian Grand Prix was a prime example of this. Sainz was finally handed some luck in the form of a safety car that enabled him to steal a march on the frontrunners owing to taking a pitstop while the yellow flags were being waved. Essentially, this meant that Sainz would come out of the pits directly behind the race leader on fresher tires with just 14 laps to go. In this particular scenario, Sainz should have managed to take first position but despite the help of DRS and the advantage that new tires give, the Spaniard could only finish second.
Kept fighting until the finish line.
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) June 20, 2022
Bravo, @CarlosSainz55 👏#essereFerrari 🔴 #CanadianGP pic.twitter.com/w531SbWL8p
Whatever it was that Sainz didn’t have, was evidently there again with the driver unable to seize the moment.
Perhaps if pushed, you could say that Sainz is guilty of not wanting success more or that he is simply not good enough to take the top step on the Formula One podium. The answer lies somewhere between those two observations. But after 150 Grand Prix that have followed a similar trend, a change of fortunes doesn’t look to be on the horizon either.
