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Carlos Sainz says that he was impressed by the McLaren MCL34's performance in Australia, enough to announce that he thinks the team will be fighting in the midfield this season.
Neither of the McLaren drivers managed to score points in the season opener and Sainz suffered an engine failure but in his first Formula 1 race, Lando Norris got his car into Q3 and qualified in 8th. This was the teams best qualifying since 2014.
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Sainz himself failed to make it out of Q1 after his run was compromised by Robert Kubica's damaged Williams and he had an issue with his power unit. However, after driving for three Renault powered teams in the last three years Sainz has said that the power units have made a step forward.
"I feel a change, yes. I feel a step forward, a step in the right direction. I still think we are a bit behind the Ferrari and Mercedes engines, but it definitely feels like we have something to fight with now."
Sainz was pleased with the progress and said that the team ended last season three or four tenths back but he was quick to add a cautionary note: "It doesn't mean we're going to be in Q3 in Bahrain and China, it means that we have got ourselves back in the mix."
Sainz spoke in detail about the frustration with the Renault engine from previous seasons: "I've done 4 years in Formula 1, those four years have been 10km/h down on all the straights so finally to be turning up to Melbourne and being just two or three km/h down on the top teams is a really, really encouraging scenario.
"They seem to have clear ideas of how to develop the engine throughout the year. I would praise Renault in that sense because finally, it seems they've done the step they were needing two years ago."
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Replies (3)
Login to replyajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
Gotta say that this is very disappointing. This was a weaker start of the year than 2018's. Alonso managed to be best of the rest through the first 5 or 7 races of the calendar. Clearly that will not happen this year. Yes, I'm aware that Alonso was capable of such feats and that the Haas' knack for self-destructing really helped last year, but the McLaren was not towards the back of the midfield last year. I'm expecting more, so much more. This year there really aren't any excuses. Not a new engine, not new management. Time for results.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
They had Alonso back then, and also they didn't have an MGU-K failure. Honestly, last year's car was at the back end, it was just Alonso that made the difference. So looking at the bright side of things, I think better things are coming for them heading into Bahrain.
boudy
Posts: 1,168
They had so many issues with the Honda PU and they lost their way with the chassis. When they bolted an Renault they suddenly found that their chassis was lacking and they couldn't put the blame on Honda. The mistake was when RBR wanted to move to Honda and mcLaren stopped that. If they would have granted access at that time mcLaren would have known that they had chassis issues a year earlier. Not sure how RBR would have reacted on towards Honda when their PU was still not on level of Renault.
mcLaren will get better and hopefully be around Renault this year.