I don’t think Sainz is doing poorly or anything, but he’s hardly setting the world on fire either. I’m not sure the leverage is particularly in his favour here, Ferrari have Leclerc already and there’s several drivers of at least the same or similar calibre to Sainz who they could look at as alternatives. So I’m not sure the threat really works. Not saying they’d definitely be looking elsewhere off their own back, just that if that’s his attitude they have no reason not to and they’d find other ways to go. Why rock the boat?
He's not setting the world on fire but he's been very consistently not terrible. He's beating Leclerc by a decent margin and is at least beating everyone that he's faster than barring the Mercs
“Consistently not terrible” is so far from leverage, and pretty dang far from acceptable for Ferrari (drivers at least, for some reason the pit wall gets a pass)