Why Carlos Sainz Jr Is Under Most Pressure Heading to 2015 Russian Grand Prix
The spectre of Singapore continued to hang over Scuderia Toro Rosso as Formula One arrived at Suzuka for last weekend's Japanese Grand Prix, but Carlos Sainz Jr was insistent that the past was firmly in the past.
Just four days earlier, a team-orders row appeared to break out at the Red Bull B-team after Max Verstappen refused to follow the pit wall's instructions to gift eighth place to Sainz in the latter stages of the Marina Bay race, as reported by Sky Sports' Mike Wise.
Yet, despite being subjected to the ultimate insult by his team-mate and denied the chance of securing his best-ever finish in F1—being freed by Verstappen would have allowed him, on fresher tyres, to pressurise seventh-placed Sergio Perez—Sainz was adamant any issues had been resolved.
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And that his bond with Verstappen—which began with a "two-hour conversation" ranging from racing cars to girls during last year's post-season test in Abu Dhabi, as they told the 2014 Autosport Awards ceremony—remained unbroken.
He told Motorsport.com's Pablo Elizalde:
"Everything is OK. It has all been discussed, it has all been clarified.
I think both have no problem with anyone, and I think it was more the team and Max who had to clarify things between them.
It has been done as far as I know, and everything should be normal here.
My approach will not change. I now know more what Max is about.
He like to plays a bit more maybe the bad boy role, and I kind of knew it, but he has now demonstrated this. But it will not change.
"
Sainz's maturity, his refusal to allow team orders pester him all the way from Singapore to Suzuka and, in particular, his assessment of his team-mate's character offered an insight into why his maiden season in F1 has exceeded all expectations.
Alongside the most exciting talent in a generation—even before he drove a grand prix car for the first time, Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko told the official F1 website how Verstappen was reminiscent of Ayrton Senna—there was a risk that Sainz would be eaten alive by the teenager this year.
Yet the Spaniard's awareness—his ability to recognise Verstappen's determination to establish an uncompromising reputation and his humility to adjust accordingly—seems to have steeled him to the point where he expects his team-mate to make bold, on-track statements in an effort to prove he's no conventional racing driver.
Such an approach means he doesn't take it as personally or react as emotionally as a lesser, more naive driver might on the occasions Verstappen tries to reinforce his ruthlessness, allowing Sainz to effectively stifle the hype surrounding the boy wonder.
That, after all, is why Sainz was able to drag his car to fifth on the grid in Spain less than two months after Verstappen supposedly walked on water to sixth in qualifying in Malaysia. It is why, in Singapore, he overtook Romain Grosjean with a forceful move at Turn 1 just seconds after Verstappen muscled his way past the Lotus.
And it is why, for much of this season—and despite a 20-point difference between the pair in the drivers' standings—it has been impossible to worship one Toro Rosso driver without revering the other.
They have, essentially, been one and the same.
In recent weeks, however, Verstappen has established a certain superiority over Sainz, to the point where it is increasingly difficult—and borderline unfair—to continue to regard the rookies as equals.
Since his worst weekend of the season at Silverstone, where he failed to reach Q3 and spun into the gravel trap after just three laps of the race, Verstappen almost seems to have made it his mission to do something spectacular in every grand prix.
From securing his best finish of fourth in Hungary to those surges from the rear of the field in Belgium, Singapore and Suzuka, Verstappen has single-handedly set new standards for young racing drivers.
While Sainz has suffered misfortune over that period—retiring with mechanical failures at the Hungaroring and Spa, slowing with a temporary gearbox glitch in Singapore—mistakes have crept into his driving, with the Spaniard making costly errors in each of the last three races.
At Monza, Sainz threw his STR10 into the gravel at Parabolica on Friday morning before incurring a five-second time penalty for exceeding track limits and gaining a number of positions at the start of the race.
In Singapore, meanwhile, he clouted two crash barriers in the space of 24 hours—the second incident costing him a seventh Q3 appearance of 2015—and in Japan, he collided with a bollard marking the pit-lane entry after, as he told Toro Rosso's official website, misjudging the behaviour of the car ahead.
Although Sainz is unlucky that his downturn in form has come at a time Verstappen has progressed to the next level, this point of the season—as F1 moves from its European heartland to "flyaway" circuits, where rookies traditionally have little or no experience—was always bound to be the time when the differences between the pair became distinguishable.
Verstappen's measured approach to a weekend, gradually building his speed and growing in confidence as each session passes, is proving superior to Sainz's hard-charging, on-the-edge style, and the Spaniard is in need of a solid result at next weekend's Russian Grand Prix.
The two long straights at the Sochi Autodrom, where Mercedes-powered cars were classified in the top-five positions in 2014, will hardly flatter Toro Rosso's eternally flawed Renault engine. But, in a sense, an event with his team slightly under the radar and with limited expectations is exactly what Sainz needs in his struggle against Verstappen.
For him, Russia is about more than getting his season back on track. It is about more than experiencing a clean, trouble-free weekend, returning to Q3 and adding a point or two to Toro Rosso's tally.
It is about proving that his team-mate is, indeed, human.
Sainz needs to arrest the phenomenon that is Max Mania before it overwhelms him.
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