Carlos Sainz

Points 15 Position 6 Date of Birth September / 01 / 1994
Place of Birth Madrid Team Ferrari Car Number 55

Profile

Carlos Sainz Jr is a Spanish Formula 1 driver, born in Madrid on 1 September 1994.

The Spaniard burst onto the F1 scene back in 2015 as part of the Red Bull driver programme, assigned to Toro Rosso for that season where he would partner fellow Red Bull junior Max Verstappen.

Sainz spent just short of three seasons with Toro Rosso before joining Renault towards the end of the 2017 campaign, signing for the French manufacturer on loan from Red Bull.

2018 would prove to be Sainz's only full campaign in Renault colours though, a year where he would finish behind team-mate Nico Hulkenberg in the Drivers' Championship.

But it was 2019 where Carlos Sainz Jr truly showed what he was made of, helping McLaren to P4 in the Constructors' Championship - their highest finish since 2012 - while also securing P6 for himself in the Drivers' Championship, overtaking former team-mate Hulkenberg on the last lap of the final race in Abu Dhabi to secure that position.

He went one step better in 2020 with P2 at a barmy Italian Grand Prix, helping McLaren to P3 in the Constructors' standings. It was also another P6 for Sainz in the Drivers' classification to sign off in style before his move to Ferrari for 2021.

His first season with Ferrari saw the Spaniard get the better of his new team-mate Charles Leclerc, beating him by 5.5 points in the standings. With four podiums including a P2 at the prestigious Monaco Grand Prix, Sainz was up and running.

In 2022 Sainz went one better as he finally broke his duck, claiming his first race win at the British Grand Prix having secured a maiden pole position in qualifying.

With nine podiums in total and a P5 in the standings, it was his best-ever season in Formula 1.

Sainz was not able to replicate such form in 2024, but he claimed the honour of denying a dominant Red Bull team the undefeated season by winning in Singapore.

Despite having the nickname 'Chilli', Sainz has proven to be anything but a hothead, often meticulously working his way through F1 races, a 'smooth operator' as he puts it.

Career

Having tested for Red Bull and Toro Rosso in the Young Drivers' test at Silverstone, Sainz was announced on 28 November 2014 as a Toro Rosso driver for 2015.

As it turned out he was to be the experienced face around the garage after 17-year-old Max Verstappen was confirmed as his team-mate for the season.

Sainz selected number 55 as his race number and finished inside the top 10 on debut with P9 at the Australian Grand Prix.

He followed that up with P8 in Malaysia, while he scored his best result of the season with P7 at the United States Grand Prix.

Overall he would record 18 points in his first season, earning him P16 in the Drivers' Championship. Verstappen meanwhile was comfortably ahead with 49 points.

Sainz kicked off his 2016 with another points finish in Australia, though come the Spanish GP he had a new team-mate in the form of Daniil Kvyat after the Russian was demoted back to Toro Rosso and replaced by Verstappen.

Sainz was far more productive in his second season of F1, scoring points in 10 of the 21 rounds, including P6 finishes in Spain, USA and Brazil.

A points total of 46 saw him rise to P12 in the Drivers' Championship when all was said and done.

Once again Sainz was in the points at the season-opener in Australia, this time around finishing P7, while a bold tyre strategy earned him P8 in China.

Sainz enjoyed one of his strongest races so far in his career with P6 in Monaco, holding off Lewis Hamilton, but his career was to change completely later that year.

During the weekend of the Singapore Grand Prix, in which he finished a career-best P4, it was announced that he would leave Toro Rosso to race for Renault on loan in 2018.

But during the Japanese Grand Prix weekend, it was confirmed that Sainz would replace Jolyon Palmer and partner Nico Hülkenberg at Renault beginning with the 2017 United States Grand Prix.

Sainz finished P7 in his first race with the team, even outqualifying Hulkenberg, something which Palmer had failed to do in 2017, although it meant very little as Hülkenberg opted not to post a lap time in Q2 due to his impending grid penalties.

His combined points from Toro Rosso and Renault would give Sainz a career-high finish of P9 in the Drivers' Championship with 54 points to his name.

2018 was without doubt Renault's best season since returning to F1 as Sainz and Hulkenberg helped lift the team to P4 in the Constructors' Championship.

Sainz wasn't able though to beat his highest points tally, scoring 53 for the 2018 campaign as he dropped to P10 in the Drivers' standings.

He did score points in 13 of the 21 rounds, but was comfortably outperformed by Hulkenberg who finished the season with 69 points to take P7 in the Championship.

It had been announced though on 16 August 2018 that Sainz would become a McLaren driver for 2019, replacing compatriot Fernando Alonso.

For the first time Sainz was free of the Red Bull shackles, something which he has talked about on many occasions.

And indeed Sainz would flourish in a rejuvenated McLaren team, and despite a torrid run of luck at the start of the season he was still able to recover to finish P6 with a total of 96 points, comfortably the best haul of his career so far.

He would finish one point clear of Pierre Gasly who started the season at Red Bull, and four clear of Alex Albon who had replaced him at the Austrian team over the summer break.

Sainz secured P6 in the Championship by passing ex-Renault team-mate Hulkenberg on the last lap to finish the race P10.

He would describe it as feeling like winning the World Championship to him, not that we saw any of this on TV, leaving Sainz frustrated that the action had not been broadcasted.

To be fair his anger was understandable - he had just become the first non-Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull driver to finish in the top six since 2015.

On top of the fantastic results, Sainz also struck up a great relationship with McLaren team-mate Lando Norris in 2019, and it's safe to say that they remained our favourite duo of the 2020 campaign, especially since we knew time was ticking on that bromance.

That's because Sainz was confirmed as a Ferrari driver for 2021 after Sebastian Vettel was controversially told that he wouldn't be given a contract extension before the 2020 campaign had even begun.

Sainz though certainly didn't take his eye of the ball in his final season with McLaren, scoring a career-best 105 points to finish P6 in the Drivers' Championship again.

Without doubt the highlight of his season was a P2 finish at the Italian Grand Prix, the best result of his career, though he wasn't actually very happy with it. The Spaniard would extract every last bit of performance out of the McLaren, but it wasn't enough to deny Gasly a first win of his career in what was a gripping charge to the chequered flag.

Sainz could also count himself unlucky when a tyre failure at the British Grand Prix saw him fall from P4 in the closing stages, while a power unit issue meant Sainz couldn't take the start in Belgium.

A scary incident involving Sainz at the Tuscan Grand Prix during a Safety Car restart, followed by a misjudgement which saw Sainz clatter the wall when returning to the track at Sochi, proved major blows for the Spaniard's chances of P4 in the Drivers' standings.

Sainz would though finish in the points at 12 of the 17 races in 2020, setting down a good marker ahead of his move to Ferrari for 2021 where he would partner Charles Leclerc.

That consistent points scoring carried over into his Ferrari career, making him arguably the biggest surprise of the 2021 campaign as he scored points in 20 of the 22 races, securing P5 in the final Drivers' standings, 5.5 points up on Leclerc.

Already by round five in Monaco, Sainz was on the podium finishing the race P2. Leclerc was due to start from pole, but could not take the start of his home race due to a driveshaft failure, caused by his crash during Q3.

But while Sainz was impressing with his race pace, crashing, more worryingly on a regular basis, was a major hurdle that he initially struggled to overcome.

The Spaniard would suffer three heavy crashes in the space of four races, crashing out at Hungary in Q2, before big shunts during practice at the Dutch and Italian GPs.

This was an area then where Ferrari demanded improvement, and that indeed came as the errors dried up, but the performances did not.

Hungary, Russia and Abu Dhabi all yielded P3 finishes for Sainz, with his best qualifying result of P2 arriving in Russia also.

2022 was a step forward for the Spaniard and also Ferrari with the F1-75 proving to be a race-winning car. But for Sainz several crashes early on in the season marred his progress, the Spaniard recording three in a row in Australia, Imola and Miami. The latter, though, was a practice shunt with the driver bouncing back to finish third.

Shaking off his crashes, his season was then hampered by reliability issues and further DNFs in Baku and Austria. But in the midst of that came the British Grand Prix and Sainz's maiden grand prix which he claimed having started from pole position for the first-time ever.

Unfortunately for him as he found his form, Ferrari lost theirs with the F1-75 falling behind the Red Bull RB18. That meant the Scuderia didn't manage a single win in the back half of the season with Sainz's bid to finish P2 also faltering with the driver fifth in the standings.

It was, however, still a best-ever season with his first win, three pole positions, nine podiums and a career high P5 in the standings.

Ferrari had hoped to bounce back and return to the title fight in 2024, but instead, Red Bull increased their margin of dominance, making life much harder for Sainz and the chasing pack.

It was not until Ferrari's home race at Monza that Sainz opened his podium account for 2024, racing to a P3 finish after soaking in the adulation of the Tifosi by claiming pole position the day prior.

Ferrari generally grew stronger in the latter stages of the campaign, Sainz taking full advantage by winning a thrilling Singapore Grand Prix, his second career victory as Red Bull were made to pay for their only slip-up of the season.

That pole position and win in Singapore marked the last in both categories for Sainz's 2024 season, as he was made to settle for P7 in the final Drivers' Championship standings, just six points behind team-mate Leclerc.

 

History

Carlos Sainz made an immediate impression on the karting scene in 2008, winning the Asia-Pacific KF3 title and finishing runner-up in the Spanish Championship. The following year, he won the highly coveted Junior Monaco Kart Cup.

Joining the Red Bull young driver programme in 2010, Sainz continued his career in Formula BMW and also got his first taste of action in Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 and European F3.

Sainz finished runner-up in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 the following season, but did clinch more silverware by winning the Formula Renault 2.0 NEC series.

Sainz signed up with Carlin in 2012 as Formula 3 then became his main focus. However, he would remain firmly out of title contention.

2013 saw him combine GP3 duties with MW Arden, finishing P10, and taking part in nine races for Zeta Course in the Formula Renault 3.5 series.

2014, his last competitive season in the minor classes before bagging a seat with Formula 1 team Toro Rosso, ended in glory as he won the Formula Renault 3.5 series with DAMS, seeing off the challenge of nearest competitor Pierre Gasly.

Networth

Having first signed for McLaren ahead of 2019 season, Sainz was reportedly earning an estimated annual salary of £3million at McLaren, but that pay packet jumped up to around £5.86m without bonuses with Ferrari.

In 2023, he brought in a cool $14m (£11m) according to Forbes, $8m coming from his base salary and $6m in bonuses.

Sainz's main sponsor used to be Spanish beer company Estrella Galicia, who had an association in place throughout Sainz's Formula 1 career before parting ways at the end of the 2023 campaign.

Family

Carlos Sainz Jr also has a very famous racing driver for a father in Carlos Sainz Sr.

Carlos Sainz Sr is a two-time World Rally Championship champion with Toyota in 1990 and 1992 and is also a three-time Dakar Rally winner, a feat achieved with three different constructors. His most recent win came in 2020, winning with Mini at the age of 57.

Carlos Sainz Sr was also a talented footballer and had trials with Real Madrid and was also a squash champion at the age of 16. Sainz is a regular face in charity football matches.

Carlos Sainz Jr's mother is Reyes Vazquez de Castro and his parents married in 1992. Sainz Jr also has a sister, Ana.

Sainz Jr was in a relationship with Angela Gastanaga but the pair split. Sainz Jr has since been dating journalist and PR person Isabel Hernaez Fuster.

They have appeared together in Instagram posts and Isabel is often seen at Formula 1 races.

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