Head-to-head · season 2026

CarlosSainzWilliams vs YukiTsunodaRacing Bulls

TSU leads the grade duel 2–1 — across the 14 rounds both were rated in, the car stripped out of the equation.

#11The Index · 8.13

P9DI championship · 74 pts

0best-of-race

P16official · 6 pts

#13The Index · 7.78

P23DI championship · 8 pts

0best-of-race

P20official · 1 pts

Carlos Sainz vs Yuki Tsunoda: who is driving better in 2026?

the verdict, from the numbers

Carlos Sainz drives for Williams, Yuki Tsunoda for Racing Bulls, so the raw results are not comparable — everything below has car performance taken out of it. Carlos Sainz leads on The Index, 8.13 to 7.78 — P11 against P13, a gap of 0.35 of a grade point. Round by round, Yuki Tsunoda has out-driven the other in 2 of 3 races where both were graded. Carlos Sainz's clearest advantage is Qualifying — 9.21 against 6.00. Yuki Tsunoda takes Tyre Management back the other way, 9.70 to 7.33. 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 Yuki Tsunoda's P23 on 8. Officially they stand P16 and P20.

Round by round

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

MEL 7.3 – SHA 9.0 – SUZ 8.3 – MIA 8.5 – CAN 9.1 – MON 8.0 – ESP 8.8 – AUT 8.2 – GBR 7.5 – SPA 7.8 – HUN 7.8 – NED 6.4 7.5 ITA 9.2 8.6 MAD 6.4 7.3

The nine dimensions

season averages, mirrored — the longer bar wins the metric

7.67 A Overdelivery 7.96

8.28 B Race Pace 7.13

8.00 C Consistency 9.84

7.29 D Attack & Defence 7.55

7.33 E Tyre Management 9.70

9.21 F Qualifying 6.00

9.09 G Race Start 7.47

7.48 H Pit Stop Execution 8.79

7.15 I Cleanliness 8.36

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Race grade, round by round

gaps = not classified