Carlos Sainz admits to ‘reinventing himself’ to keep pace with Charles Leclerc

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Carlos Sainz admits he’s had to “reinvent himself” as a driver this season in order to challenge Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc.

The Spaniard is 53 points behind Leclerc with two races to go but has raced at the front of the pack for the first time in his career, in a Ferrari car capable of race wins after a change of the regulations this season.

While Sainz has grasped his first pole position and Grand Prix victory at Silverstone in July, recent DNFs in Japan and Austin have seen the 28-year-old drop below Lewis Hamilton to sixth in the Drivers Standings.

Leclerc outqualified Sainz in the first eight races of the season and the Spaniard says he simply could not accept being slower than his team-mate for that period of time.

“It has been an extremely challenging season for me,” Sainz told the BBC. “I found a lot of setbacks at the beginning of the year with this new car, with the new regulations, that didn’t adapt to my driving style.

“I had to reinvent myself in many ways to try and find the pace. I didn’t give up. I kept pushing even in the difficult moments, and you can see it paying off now at the end of the season in terms of speed.”

“I have never been 0.2-0.3secs off any team-mate in F1 and I can never accept that. I always feel like I am quick in any kind of car, and for the first time in my career I found myself with a very competitive car but one I didn’t feel comfortable and natural with.

“I had to challenge myself and open up new roads of set-up and driving style that I wish I didn’t have to open, because I wish everything had come a lot more natural and positively. But it happened this way, and I stayed disciplined.”

Sainz, at his fourth F1 team following stints with Toro Rosso, Renault and McLaren, added that he is hestiant to talk about his strenghts as a driver in interviews, in order not to be perceived as “arrogant.”

“Every time I do an interview and say my positives and I read them, I say: ‘Ah, this sounds super-arrogant,’” Sainz added. “Maybe I go more towards the humble too much and stay in that way - modest. But whenever I see something a bit arrogant, I kill myself for it.

“So I always like to let you guys give your opinion of what you see as my strengths, while I criticise my weaknesses.”

Sainz will be targeting a strong showing in the penultimate race of the season in Brazil this weekend - he finished on the podium at Interlagos back in 2019.