Why the signs were always evident that Sainz could cut it at the top

Having read Autosport almost all my life, I’m chuffed to have been given a regular column in a magazine/website that I respect. I am sure that I will return to what I know best before too long – running race teams – but for the moment, while I recharge my metaphorical racing batteries, I plan to tell a few stories about my 40-odd years in the sport.

I’m going to kick off with Carlos Sainz, who has had a rollercoaster start to 2024. In February he learned that his Ferrari drive would be taken by Lewis Hamilton in 2025, and in March he underwent appendix surgery, causing him to miss the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. But, rather than moan about those two setbacks, his response was to win his comeback race in Melbourne, then to finish best of the rest behind the Red Bull 1-2 steamroller at Suzuka two weeks later.

So why do so many people seem to underrate him? It beats me. When in 2012 he joined us at Carlin as a Formula 3 driver, he was just 17, and he carried on his teenage shoulders the heavy weight of expectation that all Red Bull-backed drivers experience.

On top of that, the fact that his father was and is a motorsport legend – a double World Rally champion – inevitably piled extra pressure on him, especially in their native Spain, where sports fans can be passionate and unforgiving in equal measure. Worse, he had to cope with all of that despite not having the level of experience that previous Red Bull-backed drivers had been able to draw on.

Yet he showed remarkable mettle. Take Monza 2012, for example. The rain was torrential. We had three races that weekend, and I will never forget the first of them. All the cars went to the grid on slicks – and, as luck would have it, it began to rain on the parade lap, which meant that everyone had to dive into the pits straight away.

That year was the first season in which Dallara had fitted larger wheel-retaining nuts, meaning that the teams all had to use pneumatic wheelguns for the first time. Gary Bonnor, our team manager, had made our guys practise a few pitstops – which no other team did – and it paid off.

We split the crew into two groups, since we were running five cars, and Carlos was the first Carlin car in. We did his wheel change in seven or eight seconds, which was brilliant for an unexpected last-minute-dot-com pitstop….