Carlos Sainz Jr.'s 2015 Spanish GP Display Justifies His Signing by Toro Rosso
Carlos Sainz Jr. shouldn't have been in Formula One this year.
He should have been in exile in the DTM, on the outside looking in. He should have been in the World Endurance Championship, racing alongside his fellow has-beens, or in Formula E, the place where the souls of the ghosts of F1's recent past go to die.
He should have been clinging on to the dream, joining the rat race of GP2, or escaping the bubble entirely by heading to the United States and a life in IndyCar.
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Or perhaps he should have been sat at home, taking a year out, contemplating his next move and wondering whether his F1 career was over before it had even begun at the age of just 20.
Of all those taken by surprise by Scuderia Toro Rosso's signing of 16-year-old Max Verstappen in August 2014, few would have been shaken quite as violently as Sainz, who up until that point appeared entitled to displace Jean-Eric Vergne from the team's second seat for 2015.
The leader of the Formula Renault 3.5 championship—a series won by Kevin Magnussen in 2013—Sainz seemed so confident of joining Toro Rosso that he, as the Spaniard told AS (h/t ESPN F1), declined the opportunity to make an early F1 debut with Caterham halfway through last season, under the impression his chance would come sooner than later.
A chance rejected, however, soon became a chance wasted, and Verstappen's sudden elevation to partner Daniil Kvyat left Sainz—just like Antonio Felix da Costa the previous year—marginalised, at a dead end, going nowhere.
And it would have remained that way had Sebastian Vettel chosen to stick it out at Red Bull Racing and risen to the challenge set by Daniel Ricciardo for 2015, rather than seeking a new one at Ferrari. This would have consequently forced Kvyat to spend another year at Toro Rosso, providing an accurate indication of just how refined Verstappen is for his tender age.
It is worth remembering just how close Sainz came to missing out on an F1 career following a Spanish Grand Prix where the Madrid-born driver, after quietly impressing in the opening four events of the season, confirmed his status as a future star.
Sainz's run to fifth in qualifying was considered the highlight of the Spaniard's first grand prix on home soil—according to the official F1 website, he was 0.113 seconds faster than Verstappen and 0.493 seconds clear of the next-fastest Renault-powered car of Kvyat—but it was in the race where he was arguably more impressive.
And it was where those fighting qualities—the spirit that allowed him to claim the Formula Renault crown in spite of the initial Red Bull knock-back, that has seen him match Verstappen despite Red Bull advisor, Helmut Marko, comparing the teenager to Ayrton Senna, as per the official F1 website—shone through.
After a dismal getaway from the clean side of the grid—as well as suffering poor traction, Sainz was slow to change gear and hit the rev limiter, as Martin Brundle noted during Sky Sports' television coverage of the race—the Spaniard was punted down to seventh place by the second lap, which became 11th by the start of Lap 7.
Although Sainz had told FOX Sports' Adam Cooper after qualifying how difficult it would be to maintain fifth place in the race due to the STR10 car's preference for low-fuel conditions (not to mention its high-downforce setup), the speed he had fallen down the order at such an early stage presented a psychological challenge.
But rather than letting his head drop, as many drivers would, or allowing himself to be overcome by "rookie syndrome," the term McLaren racing director Eric Boullier has previously used to describe youngsters' struggles to adjust to F1 (according to Autosport's Ben Anderson), Sainz fought back.
According to Toro Rosso's official website, the 28 laps he spent caressing the hard tyres between Laps 14 and 42 was the longest any driver spent on the orange-striped compound—four laps longer than his team-mate—which was no mean feat considering Sainz's generally ragged driving style.
This allowed him to spend as little time as possible on a set of used medium tyres for the final stint, keeping them alive for longer at a stage of the race when the fuel load was decreasing, bringing the STR10 into its prime operating window.
Despite a slow final pit stop, it laid the foundations for Sainz's late charge up the order, with the Spaniard symbolically overtaking Verstappen and Kvyat, both of whom were on hard tyres, within the last four laps.
Although the latter move was scrutinised by the stewards due to Sainz running off the track to seal the pass, the fact that Kvyat locked up under braking and slid into the Toro Rosso meant the Spaniard had no option but to take avoiding action, which no doubt contributed to the Spaniard's retention of ninth place.
It was the only possible result after a weekend of exceeded expectations, which more than vindicated Toro Rosso's decision to offer Sainz a reprieve at the end of last season.
Over that period, senior figures at both Red Bull and Toro Rosso—see Dietrich Mateschitz's admission to Speed Week (h/t motorsport.com) and STR team principal Franz Tost's comments to Sky Sports' Pete Gill—had revealed their preference to persevere with Vergne, casting Sainz into the shadows.
But after the Spanish race, Marko, so often viewed as a villain for his unflinching, shameless support of Vettel, explained that he was the man who persuaded the Red Bull hierarchy to gamble on Sainz, telling Kleine Zeitung (h/t motorsport.com): "I fought hard for Sainz. He did not have a lot of friends or supporters, but I'm used to that."
Sainz will certainly have plenty more friends after his Spanish GP performance, and on a weekend when the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya grandstands were visibly emptier than in years gone by—possibly as a direct consequence of Fernando Alonso's fall from grace—his fanbase will only continue to grow.
Spain has a new grand prix hero, but Sainz is the star Formula One very nearly didn't have.
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