Head-to-head · season 2026

ValtteriBottasCadillac vs CarlosSainzWilliams

SAI leads the grade duel 10–3 — across the 13 rounds both were rated in, the car stripped out of the equation.

#19The Index · 6.86

P19DI championship · 19 pts

0best-of-race

P21official · 0 pts

#9The Index · 8.51

P9DI championship · 74 pts

0best-of-race

P15official · 6 pts

Valtteri Bottas vs Carlos Sainz: who is driving better in 2026?

the verdict, from the numbers

Valtteri Bottas drives for Cadillac, Carlos Sainz for Williams, so the raw results are not comparable — everything below has car performance taken out of it. Carlos Sainz leads on The Index, 8.51 to 6.86 — P9 against P19, a gap of 1.65 of a grade point. Round by round, Carlos Sainz has out-driven the other in 10 of 13 races where both were graded. Carlos Sainz takes Race Start back the other way, 9.04 to 7.06. In the DriverIndex Championship — the same season paid on the official points scale, but on driver merit — Carlos Sainz sits P9 on 74 points to Valtteri Bottas's P19 on 19. Officially they stand P15 and P21.

Round by round

the race grade decides each round · click a round for the full analysis

MEL 7.9 7.3 SHA 9.0 9.0 SUZ 6.6 8.3 MIA 7.0 8.5 CAN 7.3 9.1 MON 7.9 8.0 ESP 7.9 8.8 AUT 8.0 8.2 GBR 7.5 7.5 SPA 7.1 7.8 HUN 8.2 7.8 NED 8.2 6.4 ITA 7.2 9.2

The nine dimensions

season averages, mirrored — the longer bar wins the metric

7.16 A Expected Position 8.11

7.59 B Race Pace 8.59

6.98 C Consistency 7.66

6.26 D Attack & Defence 6.87

6.50 E Tyre Management 8.04

8.09 F Qualifying 9.32

7.06 G Race Start 9.04

6.61 H Pit Stop Execution 7.86

7.36 I Cleanliness 7.58

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Race grade, round by round

gaps = not classified