The breakthrough behind Sainz’s best weekend of F1 2022 so far

“In the race I was pushing flatout without any fear of losing the car. Like I had, for example, in Barcelona.”

Carlos Sainz’s explanation of his feeling inside his Ferrari F1-75 throughout last weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix rather neatly summed up his campaign so far. It has been one of promise – although that’s very hard not to hit given this is the Scuderia’s best title shot in five years – but also one of frustration. And errors.

Yet, with his speed throughout the Montreal event, close finish behind Max Verstappen and the Red Bull driver’s insistence he “seemed to lack a little bit [of race pace] compared to Carlos”, last weekend goes down as Sainz’s best so far this season.

PLUS: Canadian Grand Prix Driver Ratings 2022

Even though he may well have won in Monaco without being held up by Nicholas Latifi’s lapped Williams, after smartly and decisively choosing to go straight from full wets to slicks given how close he was to eventual winner Sergio Perez when the Red Bull re-joined on slicks, he’d be well off Charles Leclerc’s qualifying and early race pace. Sainz’s combined efforts at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve added up significantly and were the result of a new breakthrough with the 2022 Ferrari.

Before we assess his performance in Canada, it’s important to understand why Sainz has been enduring a challenging campaign despite Ferrari’s title-winning aspirations.

It’s not just that team-mate Leclerc has won twice and claimed six poles. It’s that even as he collected four podiums before arriving in Montreal, Sainz just wasn’t able to reach Leclerc’s level in the F1-75. But, to the Spaniard’s credit, he publicly fronted up to his challenge and didn’t hide his disappointment that he couldn’t ace it.

“In FP1, FP2 and FP3 I was very far behind – the most far that I've been ever in Ferrari,” Sainz said after finishing second behind Leclerc in Bahrain, boosted there by Verstappen’s late retirement.

Sainz concluded that he was "very far behind" in Bahrain, which has set off a difficult start to 2022

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

“That's why even with the 1-2 that we scored I'm not entirely happy with the weekend because as a Ferrari driver it’s been my most difficult weekend. It just shows that I need to put my head down, understand this car, understand where is Charles making the difference with his driving and the way that he's approaching the corners and driving the tyres, also in the race.”

PLUS: Why "faster" Ferrari couldn't beat Red Bull in Montreal

Bahrain is an important place to start – most obviously because it was the season’s first race – but also because it hosted the final pre-season test. In those two events, Sainz realised the scale of his challenge.

He’d come into 2022 buoyed by his maiden Ferrari season, one where he beat Leclerc in the points, took four podiums and most importantly recovered from a string of mid-season crashes to pretty much match his team-mate’s searing qualifying speed in the final ultra-high-downforce era Ferrari (Sainz qualified ahead in three of the four final rounds).

Even as he collected four podiums before arriving in Montreal, Sainz just wasn’t able to reach Leclerc’s level in the F1-75. But, to the Spaniard’s credit, he publicly fronted up to his challenge

But the new ground effect Ferrari, with its upgraded and newly potent engine, required a different driving style and Leclerc adapted better.

Sainz couldn’t match the way Leclerc was able to throw his car through a corner and cope with the results through delicate additional throttle application. In that style, Leclerc is similar to Verstappen – although wilder overall, which leaves him prone to moments such as his Imola GP spin or Spain Q3 run one spin. The sensitivities of the new ground effect cars also didn’t help Sainz’s efforts, as aggression over kerbs is now generally punished.

And so, the combination of factors meant he was aghast to discover in Jeddah he just couldn’t take several of its high-speed corners as well as he had just three races earlier at the end of the 2021 campaign – in an event where he displayed strong pace to rise from a lowly grid spot and only just lost out to Leclerc in a close late scrap.

A series of mistakes and misfortunes at Australia and Imola put Sainz behind the eight-ball

Photo by: Erik Junius

Sainz’s early 2022 podiums were then followed by a confidence-sapping crash streak. There were eerily similar circumstances to mid-2021, where Sainz crashed three times in practice or qualifying sessions trying to match Leclerc’s mid-corner speed with a loose rear end in the SF21.

He went off into the gravel on lap two in Melbourne, spun off into the wall in Imola qualifying (and was then an innocent victim of Ricciardo’s mistake at the GP start there), crashed in Miami FP2 and then went off in the gravel early in the Spain race – like Verstappen, caught out by the strong wind.

His Melbourne race disaster – not helped by Ferrari having to fit a new steering wheel on the grid that was pre-set incorrectly – is understood to have actually masked something of an early breakthrough on mid-corner car control.

Had it not been for Fernando Alonso’s red-flag causing crash in Q3 (the Alpine driver is still wearing supportive tape on his wrists under his race suit following that impact), he would’ve been at least close to Leclerc’s run one time. Leclerc took pole when the session resumed in the setting sun, from where the Monegasque driver then dominated the Australian race.

Sainz got back to feeling happier with his progress understanding the F1-75’s needs in Miami, but still wasn’t satisfied. He overdid it on that track’s last real corner trying to match Leclerc’s line and so ended up qualifying just behind in their front-row lockout.

His Spain setback, the feeling endured on home soil that Sainz acknowledges at the start of this piece, was followed by the Monaco madness – where many different results were possible for himself, Leclerc, Verstappen and Perez.

Together with Ferrari, Sainz has been hard at work getting the F1-75 to his liking

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

The key breakthrough, Sainz says, for his Montreal step, was down to the work Ferrari has been putting in to match his car set-up for the driving style he knows he must implement. The 27-year-old was also running a bigger rear wing compared to Leclerc, which added downforce to improve rear-end handling, and he was able to really hustle the car all weekend.

But Sainz puts a key warning on those promising Montreal results.

“We’ve changed things on the car a bit to try and make it a bit more to my liking,” he said in the post-race press conference. “And they seem to be working. But at the same time, I think I need more circuits, more different kinds of corners to have a proper feel for that.”

As good as he was last weekend, there was still a minor error that had big ramifications.

In a way, Sainz’s bigger rear wing assistance worked against him during the frenetic chase, while Leclerc’s lower drag profile part and Ferrari’s updated beam wing would’ve been helpful

Sainz’s decision, similarly to his tactic late in Miami qualifying, “sending it” at the final corners on his last intermediate-shod run in Q3, came because he was convinced he was nowhere near Verstappen’s pace. But he’d actually been just 0.07s adrift at the end of their respective lap’s second sectors, so his choice backfired when climbing over the kerbs at the final Montreal chicane meant he slid wide and then squirmed down the kerbs lining the Wall of Champions as rear-end instability bit him again under acceleration.

His time loss there let Alonso qualify ahead and by the time Sainz had cleared his compatriot in the race, Verstappen was 2.5s clear. Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto suggested “quali was not perfect from Carlos [and] that cost him a bit maybe [in the race]” because “being ahead or chasing certainly it's a different matter” to the event’s outcome.

There was also a lingering sense among onlookers in Montreal that had it been Leclerc chasing Verstappen in the post-safety car shootout, that he might’ve found a way by or at least attempted a move.

Chasing Verstappen in the final stages at Montreal, Sainz couldn't get a move for the lead together

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

In a way, Sainz’s bigger rear wing assistance worked against him during the frenetic chase, while Leclerc’s lower drag profile part and Ferrari’s updated beam wing would’ve been helpful (there was a 7.1mph difference in their best race speed trap figures). Plus, there’s Leclerc’s proven winning track record – although of course he’s never won when not on pole…

In any case, Red Bull showed again last weekend that it is fallible if it doesn’t get things perfectly on tyre wear and preparation – something that cost it, for example, in Turkey last year, when Valtteri Bottas made noted wet weather star Verstappen look ordinary on a tricky surface.

Here in Canada, Red Bull reckoned the Saturday rain resetting the track, combined with cooler temperatures, knocked it off course and led to Sainz’s slight race pace edge.

So, although this season is looking ever trickier for the Scuderia’s bid to finally end its 15-year wait for a drivers’ title (it’s 14 since its last constructors’ too), there’s every chance it will still be in the mix for race wins at the remaining rounds.

Leclerc will be back in his usual 2022 circumstances, but Sainz – the clever, determined and mentally strong character Ferrari so loves – has shown he now has what it takes to match.

If he can ride his Montreal breakthrough for the rest of 2022, it surely won’t be too long before Sainz finally takes his first F1 race win too.

Sainz picked up his 11th career F1 podium in Canada, but is still waiting for a maiden win

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images