Ricciardo snubbed as racing driver makes DAMNING assessment

Carlos Sainz has been backed as Max Verstappen's toughest F1 team-mate, over Daniel Ricciardo, but that is unfortunately where the good news stops for the Ferrari star.

At Red Bull alone, Verstappen has teamed up with the likes of Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and Sergio Perez on his way to winning three world championships.

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While Verstappen set the class apart through his dominant driving, his team-mates have struggled to keep pace with him.

His current counterpart, Perez, has only bettered the Dutchman's result once this season, when the Dutch driver DNF’d in Australia.

Carlos Sainz backed over Daniel Ricciardo

Verstappen's overpowering driving skills have often caused Red Bull to make driver changes because of his team-mate’s failure to match up to the 26-year-old, as Gasly and Albon can attest.

However, when Verstappen was taking his baby steps in F1 with Toro Rosso, Carlos Sainz was his team-mate.

The duo raced together for Toro Rosso in 2015 and amassed 67 points for the Italian team.

And Dutch racing driver Tom Coronel has insisted that when it comes to being Verstappen’s team-mate, Sainz was stronger than Ricciardo.

"At Ferrari, it's all very fragile, it's a bit of a mess there. Sainz knows that he has to make way for Hamilton at the end of the year," Coronel said to Formule1.nl.

"I understand that choice, but he is better than many people think. And he won a race, in Melbourne.

"Sainz was clearly better than Leclerc at the beginning of the season, at the end it was the other way around. But nobody knows exactly what's going on behind the scenes.

"What I do know is that Carlos Sainz has been the most difficult team-mate of Max Verstappen since he entered Formula 1. That was at Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2015.

"Max was not at the level he is now at then, but the same goes for Sainz. In my eyes, Sainz is typically one of those drivers of whom you think: he will never become world champion, but he could have been.

"A bit like the calibre of Fisichella, Trulli. I am seriously a fan of Carlos Sainz, but I am afraid that he will never get a serious chance at a world title.

"Look, he is still growing as a driver. He is ready to sit in a good car, but it is not available to him. And then you end up in a Williams. Well, then it is not going to happen."

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