Carlos Sainz Reflects on How His Role at Ferrari Changed With Fred Vasseur Replacing Mattia Binotto

Carlos Sainz joined Ferrari in 2021 when Mattia Binotto was their team principal. Sainz worked under him for two whole seasons before the Italian outfit decided to a change in leadership. Now, Fred Vasseur is in charge of the outfit, and Sainz feels that things are changing at the Maranello-based outfit.

Binotto was one of the brightest engineers to have ever worked in F1. He played a very key role behind the scenes in helping Michael Schumacher and Ferrari dominate the sport between 1999 and 2004. Unfortunately, ever since he became team principal, things never went his way.

Binotto fell out with Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc too, with the latter’s disastrous 2022 campaign acting as a major reason behind his dismissal. On the other hand, Binotto shared a very special and close relationship with Carlos Sainz, who admitted that he joined Ferrari mainly because of him.

Carlos Sainz on working with Mattia Binotto and Frederic Vasseur

As reported by Ferrari News on Twitter, Binotto’s relationship with Sainz was special. The Spaniard recalls how the Swiss-Italian engineer was always very good to him. Additionally, he is still in touch with his former boss, even though there is someone new leading Ferrari at the moment.

“I obviously got on very well with Mattia,” said Sainz. “I’m still in touch with him now and then. He’s a really nice guy, a guy that I rate very highly. He’s also part of the reason that I came to Ferrari, and he was obviously very good to me.”

Sainz was sad when Binotto had to leave the team, but insists that he is professional enough to have a working relationship with Vasseur too. The Madrid-born driver labels him as a “great guy also” but adds that he is making a lot of big changes to the team. Whether or not he personally supports them, Sainz is publicly backing the Frenchman, who has vowed to take the team back to the top.

Is Sainz Ferrari and Vasseur’s second choice behind Charles Leclerc?

In 2021 and 2022, when Binotto was in charge of Ferrari, he made it clear that there wouldn’t be any discrimination between Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. He treated both of them equally, which often led to a lot of backlashes towards him, as prioritizing Sainz’s races spoiled Leclerc’s chances of advancing on some occasions.

Now, however, Vasseur is showing that this particular aspect of management has changed at Ferrari. Leclerc seems like he is the clear number one driver. Ferrari too, doesn’t have a car as strong as last year’s, which has diminished Sainz’s role in the team, at least on paper. At the Austrian GP last week, we saw Sainz being visibly upset with the Ferrari management for not letting him overtake Leclerc, even though he was faster than him in the initial stages. He felt that it cost him a shot at the podium places.

Regardless of the driver hierarchy at Ferrari at the moment, Sainz is ahead of Leclerc in the drivers’ championship standings. His overall consistency has kept him in P5, with 82 points to his name. Leclerc is a place behind him in sixth, with 72 points.