ONLY Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen are 'better' than Spanish Formula 1 driver Carlos Sainz Junior, according to retired racer Nico Rosberg.
Now the only Spanish presence at the élite end of motor racing after Fernando Alonso quit a year ago, Carlos (pictured) – whose dad, of the same name, was world rally driving champion in 1990 and 1992 – has yet to win a race, but his regular top 10 placings and his recent and first podium in Brazil show he has still to reveal the full extent of his talent, Rosberg considers.
The 2016 F1 world champion – who knocked the now-legendary British driver Hamilton into second place in the standings that year – said Sainz, 25, is 'doing a great job' and having 'an incredible season'.
He is 'racking up a heap of points with team McLaren', says the German-Finnish 'chip off the old block', son of 1980s' legend Keke Rosberg.
Nico, 34, who retired less than a week after becoming world champion three years ago, says he would 'go one step further' and consider Sainz to be 'in the top four' of the strongest drivers on the grid, beaten only, in his view, by The Netherlands' Verstappen and by Hamilton, and 'on a par with' Monaco's Charles Leclerc.
Although at present, Sainz is 'quite possibly ahead' of Leclerc, and is currently 'the third-best on the circuit'.
Madrid-born Sainz, who started out in 2010 in European and Pacific Formula BMW, Rénault Formula 2.0 British Winter Series and European F3 Open, among others, kicked off his Formula 1 career in 2015 with team Toro Rosso, with whom he finished in the top 10 in 26 races over two-and-a-half seasons.
His best result with Toro Rosso was three races before his mid-2017 move to Rénault Sport and the last race he finished prior to the switch, coming fourth in Singapore.
He was taken on by McLaren at the start of the 2019 season to replace twice-world champion Alonso, and has finished in the top 10 in 12 out of the 20 races so far this year.
Sainz's highest position was at the Brazilian Grand Prix at São Paulo's Interlagos circuit and, with just one date left on the 2019 calendar – Abu Dhabi – is currently seventh in the world championship standings.
As for Rosberg, the Williams and Mercedes driver's career was more or less set in stone as the son of the Finnish 1982 F1 world champion, a contemporary of legends Damon Hill and Graham Hill, the latter of whom is so far the only racing driver to have completed the so-called 'motorsport triple crown' of the Monaco Grand Prix, the Le Mans 24-Hour and the Indianapolis 500.
Curiously, Nico – who has dual nationality thanks to his German mother Sina – speaks five languages, including English and German, but these do not include his dad Keke's native tongue.
Nico speaks Italian and French, too, given that he has lived in Monaco since he was a baby when his family moved from Wiesbaden – and has a good working knowledge of Spanish, given that he spends a lot of his time off in his mansion on the Balearic island of Ibiza.
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