Why Sainz thinks he “might have a chance” of beating his original F1 team mate

Nine years ago, two fresh-faced, highly promising young rookies from Toro Rosso lined up on the grand prix grid for the first time ever as team mates, becoming the youngest ever driver partnership in the history of Formula 1.

Now, both drivers are in their 10th F1 seasons. Their paths may have diverged over that time, but now they find themselves both at the same track, Albert Park, on the same grid as their historic grand prix debut. Only this time, Verstappen and Sainz will be sharing the front row.

They have both been on the front row together before, of course – four times in fact. Intriguingly, three of those occasions saw Sainz on pole with Verstappen only having that honour a single time. But while Sainz won the first instance back at Silverstone in 2022, Verstappen has prevailed every other time since. Will he make it four on Sunday?

Neither driver likely expected to achieve the result they did heading into the qualifying session. Indeed, both probably expected Sainz’s team mate Charles Leclerc to at least extend his run of front row starts, if not take pole position.

Red Bull by no means looked slow over the three practice sessions in Melbourne leading up to Verstappen’s pole, but they did not look as comfortable as usual either. Verstappen regularly complained about his RB20 understeering around the low-grip Albert Park circuit, but appeared to have worked out his set-up problems at the perfect time.

Meanwhile, Sainz was not the Ferrari driver most people expected to be Verstappen’s closest challenger – himself included. After recovering from appendix surgery just two weeks ago, he has been frank about the physical challenge he’s faced so far and struggled to believe that he had even achieved a front row start. But he wondered how close he could have been had he been fully fit.

“I think today if I would have done 100% good job, pole position could have been possible,” Sainz said.

“And if I would have felt 100% – and I would have done Jeddah – I think that ‘15.9 was achievable with the way I was driving and the way I felt in the car. And tomorrow will be the same.”

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Although Sainz appears confident that Ferrari may be genuinely strong relative to Red Bull this weekend, Leclerc isn’t so sure.

“I think they had more margin than what we thought,” Leclerc admitted. “Because from turn seven to turn nine today, when they went flat with the engine, it was much faster than what we expected. So I think tomorrow they will have a very strong race pace.”

The previous two races around Albert Park in the ground effect era have been defined by three factors: very low tyre wear, DRS trains down the long straights and the ever-present risk of sudden Safety Cars or red flags. When it comes to tyres, Sunday’s race will already be a departure from the previous two due to the softer compounds available this weekend. And we now have 19 drivers heading into the grand prix with minimal knowledge about the hard compound.

“From the data gathered over the past two days it is highly likely to be a two-stop race with the medium-hard-hard combination being the quickest,” Pirelli’s head of motorsport Mario Isola said, “However, no one has run the hardest compound so far, so that’s another unknown.”

Tyre management will become a more important element over the race, especially dealing with graining. Many drivers showed visible graining on their left-front tyres during practice and Sainz expects it to be something everyone will have to deal with during the race.

“The biggest thing we saw is that it’s very easy to grain the medium tyre,” he said. “So being in traffic behind the Red Bull might not be the best for that tyre. And then let’s see how the hard behaves.”

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With four DRS zones, there are more opportunities to overtake around the modern layout of the Albert Park circuit than in its pre-pandemic form. But with following closely appearing to be more of a problem this season, it could be that we see more chains of multiple drivers running together, unable to separate.

Conditions may be set to remain dry on Sunday, but Melbourne rarely needs rain to generate chaos. Over the last four races held here, there have been a combined 10 Safety Car, Virtual Safety Car or red flag periods. Alexander Albon’s Friday practice crash at turn six – and his early race crash at the same corner last year – shows just how easy it is for drivers to end their races in an instant.

But while Sainz will be hoping he can make it to the end of the 58 laps without being in too much discomfort, he is no less eager to put up a challenge against his original F1 team mate and break his winning streak once again.

“I will give it my absolute everything to do it because it’s been a while since Singapore, and he’s been on that top step since,” Sainz said. “If there’s one weekend where we have a good pace, it’s this one. Tricky track to overtake, tricky on tyres. So who knows? I think we might have a chance.”

Over to you

Will Carlos Sainz Jnr and Ferrari be able to take the fight to Verstappen on Sunday? Share your views on the Australian Grand Prix in the comments.

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