Carlos Sainz recently visited Ferrari’s Maranello facility as he completed a seat fitting in a 2018 car and attended his first media event with the Scuderia.
Since then, the Spaniard has insisted that Ferrari isn’t a team which “eats and devours” its drivers, stressing that they only parted ways with Sebastian Vettel after he spent several seasons with the Scuderia.
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“Ferrari is not a team that eats and devours its drivers,” Sainz said.
“If you see Vettel’s career… what driver wouldn’t have wanted to spend five years at Ferrari like he has been?
“The longest I’ve been in a team is two years, so if Ferrari is a team that devours drivers, what are Renault, Toro Rosso and all the others?
“Alonso also spent five years at Ferrari. That doesn’t seem like a team that devours drivers, but cycles.
“Of course I want to have a cycle at Ferrari, create a similar environment [to McLaren] there. I already have experience in creating a works team, and I hope I have a team equal, similar or better than the one I have at McLaren. I’m going to do my best to have it,” he added.
Continuing, Sainz praised McLaren for helping him improve as a driver in many different aspects.
“A team like McLaren has allowed me to get the best version of myself as a driver,” he said.
“I am an improved version of what I was at Toro Rosso and Renault. I have improved in races, in starts, in qualifying, but I don’t know where I am better now. It has been a continuous and probably more advanced progression than I thought.
“In McLaren I have felt more comfortable than in other places, and that stability of a two-year contract has allowed me to improve as a driver and adapt more to the car, get more performance. I’m very happy and very grateful for these two years.”
Earlier this month, Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto denied that the team would be going into the 2021 F1 season with a designated number one driver, so Sainz and Charles Leclerc will be free to battle each other on-track.
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