At first glance, it might be surprising to see a Ferrari driver sitting in the upper-mid section of the driver rankings at the end of the 2023 season.
After all, Carlos Sainz Jnr earned a place in history books this season. He will go down as the only driver ever to beat both RB19s to win a grand prix in 2023 – an achievement that will always be remembered for.
But while Sainz pulled off something no other driver could do that September night in Singapore, the rest of his season certainly had its ups and downs. And in such an incredibly competitive field of drivers as there was in 2023, those negative moments become more difficult to ignore.
Ferrari were not as strong as either he, team mate Charles Leclerc or new team principal Frederic Vasseur would have hoped for throughout 2023. Each grand prix seemed to be a dice roll as to whether or not the notoriously peaky SF-23 would be at its best for the weekend, while Red Bull’s dominance left little opportunities to fight for the top places on the podium.
Early in the season, Ferrari found themselves not just well behind Red Bull but also slower than Aston Martin and Mercedes. Although Leclerc picked up only six points in the opening three rounds – compared to Sainz’s 20 – Leclerc was comfortably the stronger of the Scuderia drivers over the early phases of the championship.
In the season opener in Bahrain, Sainz was behind Leclerc at every point of the weekend and only finished fourth courtesy of Leclerc breaking down late in the race. In Jeddah, he was half a second slower than Leclerc in qualifying but started well ahead of him on the grid due to a grid penalty. Sainz allowed Lance Stroll to nail him around the outside of turn 13 on the opening lap and finished one place ahead of Leclerc, who started eight positions further back on the grid.
Melbourne turned into a nightmare as, after restarting fourth on the grid for the final restart, he made contact with Fernando Alonso at the first corner, sending the Aston Martin spinning out of the order. But when the stewards handed him a five-second time penalty, it was effectively as good as a ten second stop-and-go penalty as the Safety Car finish meant he dropped outside of the top 10, missing out on points.
The underwhelming results continued over the early phase of the year. When Leclerc took pole in both the sprint and grand prix qualifying sessions in Baku, Sainz didn’t seem like he was driving the same car. Although his fifth place result was…
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