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Carlos Sainz has hailed McLaren's race pace, as he drove from the back row of the grid to eighth place on Sunday.
Sainz started from the rear of the pack after taking on grid penalties for exceeding the number of power unit components he can use throughout a season.
The Spaniard admits that his pace was a lot stronger than what he thought it would be, but rued a late front wing issue that saw him having to settle for eighth behind Pierre Gasly.
"I didn't expect to have the pace I had," he said. "Halfway through I looked at the screens and saw I had the fastest lap. I thought 'this is good, this is working'.
"I took it easy at the beginning, I wanted to save the tyres to go long. I went long and it paid off because in the last stint I was flying out there. I was even catching Gasly at the end of the race, and Lando but I had a problem with the front wing.
"The front wing broke and I lost all the balance. I had to settle for P8 just in front of Raikkonen but the pace today was very special. I enjoyed it a lot."
Sainz pleased with 'balanced' tyre situation
Sainz started the race on the medium tyre, going 41 laps on the compound before switching to the hard.
"I thought there was going to be rear degradation, but in the end it was more front. It was quite balanced - blistering at the front, degradation at the rear.
"But our car is sutiing for all the tyres. I did a good job at the beginning, the first 10 or 15 laps to try to go crazy and overtake everyone to create a good tyre delta for the end."
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
4 members have this team as their favourite
Replies (6)
Login to replycalle.itw
Posts: 8,527
This is good to see for sure. Just keep it up, and you'll be best og the rest.
denis1304
Posts: 284
Sad thing is, if he started 6th or 7th, he would still be 1 lap down on winer
f1ski
Posts: 726
Kudos th Mclaren for making the changes neccesary to advance the program. Moving away from Dennis, Canning Boullier and getting driivers who can work well with the team without being incessantly negative. Amazing the progress. There maybe hope for williams if they too will make big changes.
Ram Samartha
Posts: 1,172
Agree! It's amazing to see how they have progressed in 2 years. The equivalent move by Williams of letting Alonso go do his own thing, would be letting go of Claire. Both r like an anchor to their F1 teams. Great to see Sainz getting to race in a good car. And who woulda thunk that McLaren would be strong at two very different track layouts.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Absolutely. The base is there, they just need to build on it. Bring in some order and cleanliness, and cut the rot away. They need to make an at least as big change as McLaren did, if not even greater.
cricho
Posts: 80
It's going to be nice to see how MACLAREN closes the gap to RBR HONDA by the end of the season.
This gap will measure their true evolution. Bravo mclaren! They have to keep the momentum going....