0
Carlos Sainz has spoken at length about the issues he had with the McLaren MCL34 during qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix. He believes that his 13th place was the best he could do with the car as the team struggle to find the right balance.
Also to further the disappointment, for the first time at his home Grand Prix, Sainz was out-qualified by his teammate, as Lando Norris managed to qualify in 11th place
The Spaniard says that the MCL34 seemed on target to make it to Q3 at the start of Q1 but as temperatures rose and the track rubbered in, the McLaren could not make the gains that the other teams were seeing.
Sainz also admitted making an error in his best lap but said that he was pushing hard and the time "was not very fast" and he just made a mistake from trying a bit too hard.
"Today wasn’t our day but tomorrow is a different day, tomorrow the pace will be different, the track will be different so maybe we can find a bit more rhythm than what we had today."
When asked if getting into Q3 was possible he replied: "No, I don’t think so. In Q1 I agree, (it looked like) Q3 was in our reach, as Q2 evolved we just didn’t find lap time compared to Q1. When your competitors suddenly find 3 tenths, 4 tenths, we couldn’t do that.
"We need to find why the harmony with the car wasn’t as good as yesterday, we have something to analyse there then we can get better."
When he was asked if the performance of the car was disappointing he answered: "Yes, definitely, after a strong P2 yesterday, today in practice we couldn’t find the right balance, we were struggling a bit.
"Q1 was encouraging, we were quite fast, then as the track temperatures were going up we were starting to lose quite a lot of rear grip and for reasons, we still don’t understand we didn’t improve in Q2 as much as we would have like.
"Not at harmony with the car, same as I had yesterday, we have things to analyse and look forward to tomorrow."
Grand Prix of JapanLocal time
05:00 - 06:00
Grand Prix of JapanLocal time
05:00 - 06:00
18,853 comments on McLaren
2 members have this team as their favourite
Tweets about Carlos Sainz jr
233,608 comments on McLaren 120 members have this team as their favourite Tweets about McLaren
Spain
Spain
Bahrain
Spain
Spain
Circuit de Catalunya
Spain
Circuit de Catalunya
Australia
Albert Park
Bahrain
Bahrain International Circuit
Bahrain
Bahrain International Circuit
Azerbaijan
Baku City Circuit
Spain
Circuit de Catalunya
Spain
Circuit de Catalunya
Monaco
Monte Carlo
Canada
Gilles Villeneuve
France
Paul Ricard
Austria
Red Bull Ring
United Kingdom
Silverstone
Germany
Hockenheimring
Hungary
Hungaroring
Belgium
Spa-Francorchamps
Italy
Monza
Singapore
Marina Bay Street Circuit
Russian
Sochi Autodrom
Japan
Circuit Suzuka
Mexico
Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez
United States of America
Circuit of the Americas
Brazil
Interlagos
United Arab Emirates
Yas Marina Circuit
Replies (0)
Login to reply