Carlos Sainz comes out of the quagmire

Carlos Sainz is insurance.

That is one of the fundamental elements to understand his signing by Ferrari in 2021 and his latest renewal by the 'Scuderia', announced last Thursday in the preview of the grand prize that this Sunday (3:00 p.m., Dazn) will be held in Imola.

Two weeks ago, in Australia, the bad leg made Saturday's qualifying run through him, a circumstance that condemned him to start from far behind (ninth) and consider a race to the attack.

The precipitation then led him to make a massive mistake, one of those that are so difficult to see in him, which caused him to end up stranded on the ground in the second lap.

The Spaniard intoned the

without making any excuses the day that Charles Leclerc, his workshop neighbor, celebrated his second victory in the three Grand Prix held up to that moment.

This Friday, Sainz returned to skating after suffering a run off the track that forced him to swim against the current again, in the first test of the course known as

.

However, the Ferrari man knew how to get out of the jam to rebuild his options with a view to the fourth stop on the calendar.

In the 21 laps that this aperitif lasted, the man from Madrid found a corridor through which he snaked through the peloton, going from ninth place to fourth, at the moment of crossing under the checkered flag.

That will allow him to start this Sunday from the second row of the grid, behind only Max Verstappen, Leclerc and Checo Pérez.

The Dutchman from Red Bull has activated the pursuit mode after the two triggers that caught him behind the wheel in Bahrain and in Melbourne, where two faults in the fuel supply system of his car led him to give up prematurely.

The 46 points that separate him from Leclerc in the general table mean that the current champion has no other option than to go out and bite, with all that this implies in the case of a shark like

.

Leclerc commands with almost double the points of what George Rusell has, his closest pursuer, while Sainz is third in the statistics, with four points less than Mercedes and 38 less than his partner.

Verstappen is sixth, 46 points behind the Monegasque.

Knowing Sainz's demand, surely the son of the two-time world rally champion (1990 and 1992) has his blood boiling.

And probably even more so after the latest statements by Mattia Binotto, his boss, in which he hinted that he must learn to better deal with the pressure of competing behind the wheel of a single-seater with enough potential to win.

According to the director of Ferrari, the recent setbacks that the boy has had to face are not a clear indication of anything, but he does recommend that he make a chip change as soon as possible.

“I don't think Carlos will have any problems, but obviously he has to adapt to the new scenario.

He has made a couple of big mistakes.

This Friday he was riding very fast when he went off the track.

And I don't think it was the time to seek the limit.

He knows that very well”, commented Binotto, this same Saturday.

“I think it's all about handling the pressure.

For the first time in his life he has a car that can fight for the top positions.

He just has to adapt to it and I'm sure he will do it very quickly, because he is very smart and capable, ”added the engineer, shortly before receiving Sainz's response, with a showy comeback.

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