Sainz joined Ferrari in 2021 and teamed up with Leclerc to help the team take third place in the Constructors’ Championship after recovering from its worst season in 40 years.
Sainz finished the year in fifth place in the drivers’ standings, 5.5 points ahead of Leclerc, and took four podiums over the course of the season. Leclerc only stood on the podium once, but took two pole positions.
Both Sainz and Leclerc felt they had learned a lot from each other in their first year as teammates, but Sainz revealed that at first he could hardly believe how fast Leclerc drove during pre-season tests.
“I’ve had a lot to learn from Charles since I arrived in Bahrain for the winter test,” said Sainz. “The way he drove the Ferrari in a special way, to be as fast and as fast as it is all year round, I had to adapt” [to it], I had to copy many things that I saw in the data.
“Sometimes it was hard to believe it was possible, and it got so crazy fast that it was actually a little bit shocked. But little by little, by adapting to him and trying to learn from him, I managed to reach a good level.
“There are still things where he is much stronger than me in certain areas during the winter break. We’re going to share some information and try to both become better drivers who learn from each other. “
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF21, fights with Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari SF21
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Leclerc and Sainz forged a close friendship both off-track and on-track, which gave Ferrari a boost when its on-track fortunes rose.
“We learned a lot,” said Leclerc. “As always when you have a new teammate, you always learn [such as] the new way Carlos approaches race weekends, the way he works, his talent, even his raw speed, the way he takes corners.
“He’s had a great year so of course he really, really pushed me to do better in every race and it was just extremely interesting.
“I think one of Carlos’ strengths is maybe race management and tire management, and that was probably my weakness in 2019. I made great strides as a driver in 2020 and this year and partly this year.” Is Thanks to Carlos. “
Sainz and Leclerc finished four of the last five races of the 2021 season one place apart in the race standings and fought a close battle for seventh place in Saudi Arabia.
Sainz was confident that the close competition between himself and Leclerc would “bring both drivers to a better level in the next season and also benefit Ferrari”.
“It’s a great competition and a great team-mate, besides being a super cool guy as a team-mate,” said Sainz.
