The man of the moment
In this Formula 1 ‘summer break’ one of the most talked about names, inside and outside the paddock, was that of Carlos Sainz. After a first half of the season marked by indecision about his future, the Spanish driver – left out by Ferrari with a view to 2025 to make room for Lewis Hamilton – has decided to accept Williams’s courtship.
James Vowleswho has been carrying out the campaign to convince Sainz from the very beginning with the aim of pairing him with Alex Albon, has repeatedly stressed that consider Sainz one of the three or four best drivers on the grid. The numbers for this first half of 2024 seem to prove him right, at least from the point of view of continuity of performance.
| Pilot | Medium position | Withdrawals/Disqualifications |
| Max Verstappen | 2.38 | 1 |
| Landon Norris | 3.46 | 1 |
| Carlos Sainz | 4.25 | 2 |
| Charles Leclerc | 4.69 | 1 |
| Oscar Plates | 5.14 | 0 |
| Lewis Hamilton | 5.31 | 1 |
| George Russell | 5.45 | 3 |
| Sergio Perez | 6 | 2 |
Never worse than sixth
Going to look at the data average placings this yearwhich are obtained by dividing the sum of the positions obtained by a driver by the number of GPs completed, Sainz is even thirdpreceded only by Max Verstappen and Lando Norris. The Spaniard has an average placing of 4.25 which takes into account his 12 placings, excluding the race skipped in Arabia and the retirement from the Canadian GP. Sainz when he saw the checkered flag was not never dropped below sixth positionthe only one to succeed together with Verstappen.
The reigning world champion tops this particular ranking with an average score of 2.38 while Norris is second with 3.46. Sainz beats Leclerc by about half a positionwhich stands at 4.69 and pays above all for the 11th place in Austria and the 14th in Silverstone.
The objection to the comparison on the average placing could be given by the fact that a driver who has many retirements and only a few good placings could be advantaged in the count, but in this case all the standard-bearers of the four top teams were able to ‘discard’ a similar number of racesbetween a minimum of zero (only Piastri) and a maximum of three (only Russell) unfinished races.
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