Carlos Sainz Would Want To Work On His Imola Record

There are drivers out there who have had a mixed bag of a season so far, such as Nico Hulkenberg, Valtteri Bottas, Oscar Piastri and George Russell. Then there are drivers, who to put it simply, have had a fantastic season so far. This list includes the F1 elites, aka drivers who regularly hang out in the front row or the nearabouts- such as Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.

And then there are drivers who have already evidenced the extreme highs and lows this season. Take Carlos Sainz jr. of Ferrari for example.

Given he had a medical anomaly at Jeddah, home to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix this season, Carlos Sainz had to actually miss an F1 race. Soon after which he bounced back and in sensational style at Australia, the very next racing event.

From missing out on a race to ultimately acing one, F1’s smooth operator has already had a great season this year but one that was also punctuated by a very recent penalty; in what was an otherwise strong and decent result at Miami, Carlos Sainz’s P4 result was penalised and it ultimately became a fifth on the grid, which promoted Perez to fourth.

Having said that, as Carlos Sainz prepares to battle for the upcoming Emilia Romagna Grand Prix that takes place at Imola, he would hope to aim for a significant improvement in his personal record at this picturesque venue.

Not that he has fared extremely poorly here at Imola, truth be told, but the general consensus is that Sainz can do a lot better than he has at the Imola Romagna Grand Prix in Italy, the first of the two races to take place this year in the beautiful European wonderland.

So let us rewind our memories to understand when was the first time that Carlos Sainz competed at the captivating and high speed Imola, home to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix? To that end, it was back in 2021, where Sainz first raced here and with Ferrari.

It was to be his maiden drive at Imola and his first year with the Scuderia Ferrari team. And the battle yielded a fighting P5. Back in that year, Sainz, then approaching 26 years of age, found in his path as did most of the other drivers, two massive battlers in the form of Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.

While Hamilton was the one who clinched pole position, he would ultimately be usurped by Verstappen in what were overcast conditions.

The next that Carlos Sainz battled at Imola was in the 2022 F1 season, wherein his struggles were evident from the word go. After a difficult qualifying performance wherein he bagged no better than P10 (while teammate Leclerc began from the front row given his P2 start), Sainz would eventually race retire; he would endure a tough collision with Daniel Ricciardo, the Aussie competing with McLaren at that time.

It mustn’t be forgotten that Sainz, much like a Leclerc or Norris, does not have tremendous experience of having raced at the Emilia Romagna region before, which is not the case with stalwarts like Hamilton and Alonso. When he competes here in 2024, the Imola contest would only be the third occasion that Carlos Sainz would take to the wheels of an F1 car at this particular venue.

But in the light of his recent F1 result, which wasn’t a podium, unlike the three he has bagged already, the Madrid-born talent would definitely want to up his game and hopefully register his first ever Imola podium.

However, for him to be able to achieve that kind of result, it’ll all boil down to the grid position bagged in the qualifying.