Sainz, a bitter ending
He was the only one to beat Red Bull in the most dominant season in the history of Formula 1, but he was also the one who ended the World Championship with the most bitter face: a strange year, that of Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard offered excellent continuity of performance for almost all of 2023, and the ranking was “rewarding” him with fourth place in the drivers’ standings and a considerable advantage over Charles Leclerc, who after Interlagos amounted to 22 points.
To the nefarious weekend of Las Vegaswhich started with the manhole accident and ended in sixth place full of regrets for a truly competitive Ferrari and an accident caused at the first corner, was added to the weekend in Abu Dhabi. At Yas Marina Sainz was unrecognizable, hitting the wall in PL2, being eliminated in Q1 and generally never finding a rhythm on the SF-23. Result: started 16th, Smooth Operator he failed to get back upstream, leaving Charles Leclerc alone in the fight against Mercedes in the constructors’ standings. It’s normal for the Spaniard to be dejected after a race spent hoping for a Safety Car (which never arrived) to clear the compound for free.
Sainz’s words
“It was a really difficult race, already with the hard tire in the first stint we hadn’t made the progress we expected. For the whole year it was like this: every time we started off hard we weren’t able to go back up, for one reason or another.“, these are his words to Sky Sports F1.
“We were out of the points, so we relied on luck to get into the top-10. It didn’t happen, but in general these last two races have been very tough for me, from that accident in Las Vegas onwards it seems like nothing has gone in my direction. We lost a lot of points in these last two races, also missing the opportunity to finish second in the Constructors’ Championship. It’s a shame because the season was going really well, they are two difficult races to digest“.
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