Carlos Sainz has enjoyed an impressive F1 campaign in his final season at Ferrari – but Lewis Hamilton’s arrival could cause issues according to one observer.
Carlos Sainz’s impressive performances this season could leave Charles Leclerc pondering why Ferrari are shipping him out for Lewis Hamilton. That is according to former F1 team boss Peter Windsor, who believes there could be trouble ahead at Maranello.
Sainz is in his final season with Ferrari, having only joined in 2022. His spot will be taken next year by Hamilton, who is calling time on his 11-year stint with Mercedes to join the Prancing Horse.
The Spaniard is hellbent on showing Ferrari what they’ll be missing after an impressive start to the 2024 campaign. He won the Australian Grand Prix in March and has since finished on the pdoium three more times, leaving him fourth in the drivers’ championship and just four points behind Leclerc.
And Leclerc – who was crowned the hometown hero when winning the Monaco Grand Prix earlier this season – may find himself annoyed by Hamilton’s arrival, according to Windsor.
During their three seasons together, Sainz has comfortably been within a tenth of Leclerc’s lap times, with the pair sharing extremely close calls in multiple races. In the 2023 season, the Ferrari stars could barely be separated, with the Monegasque triumphing in the intra-team qualifying battle by 15-7, while finishing only six points ahead of him in the drivers’ standings.
According to Windsor, Sainz’s consistency – which has proved valuable to the team – could lead Leclerc to questioning the decision to get rid of him in favour for Hamilton, who recently broke his three-year winless streak at the British Grand Prix. “If Charles is usually a tenth quicker, Lewis will be confident he can handle Charles in the race,” Windsor said on his YouTube channel.
“If it’s the other way around, I can see Charles starting to get extremely annoyed by the whole situation and saying to Nicholas Todt ‘What have we done here? Why didn’t we keep Carlos?’ Even then, Carlos drove pretty well at Silverstone. If the car was as difficult as Charles made it look, then Sainz did an unbelievable job.
Hamilton has enjoyed his fair share of battles with team-mates during his 18 years in F1. But he has only been bested on four occasions, with Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg, and George Russell all defeating the 39-year-old during a season.