F1 ANALYST
Edd Straw on Carlos Sainz’s career salvation
Heads you drive for Red Bull Racing, tails you’re part of the emerging Renault team’s lineup. Not a bad coin toss for Carlos Sainz for the 2019 Formula 1 season. But what if it lands on its side? Then the best laid plans of Sainz and men go awry, which is why the 24-year old currently finds himself as Mclaren’s spearhead.
Sainz is clad in papaya in 2019 thanks to a combination of the cascade effect on the driver market caused by Daniel Ricciardo’s defection to Renault and Red Bull’s reluctance to recall the Spaniard given the way he agitated for a loan move away. Mclaren was the right move on the basis of ‘any port in a storm’, and the first time he faced the massed ranks of the F1 media at Spa last year after the deal was done, he wasn’t convincing.
“It’s one of the dreams I had as a kid, and to be joining Mclaren in the future, it’s impossible to be unhappy,” he said. But we weren’t sure he was sure. After all, Mclaren was in a downward spiral and it was hardly the first-choice move it would have seemed in Sainz’s formative years. If Mclaren failed to pull out of that nosedive and came up with another dog this year, it might have killed Sainz’s F1 career stone-dead. But there was always the hope of a rapid turnaround, and Mclaren has been a regular contender for midfield ‘victories’ – particularly since it got on top of the upgrade introduced at May’s Spanish Grand Prix that has improved the stability of the rear end. The team’s capacity to be best-of-the-rest is still partly track dependent, and Mclaren admits there’s work to be done on the car in low-speed corners, but realistically the first half of 2019 has gone as well as could be hoped for Sainz.
Evidence so far suggests Mclaren is not hitting the developmental brick walls of last year, meaning that car performance is augmenting the trackside operational strength that meant it was still able to pick up occasional good results last year.
Sainz admitted he was “relieved” by Mclaren being so effective after finishing sixth in France, although he was genuinely impressed from the start by what he saw at Woking. He’s played his part, moving close to the factory and spending plenty of time there in the hope of laying the foundations to be a fixture with the re-emerging team beyond his two-year contract. While Lando Norris has performed strongly, Sainz is the senior partner and has the chance to make Mclaren ‘his’ team.
Sainz is making the most of it, but would he have been better off at Red Bull? Perhaps, given it’s a winning team, but he might, perversely, have actually dodged a bullet. Yes, Red Bull is the third strongest team in F1 and on a trajectory that could make it a title contender with Honda propulsion as early as next year. Yes, Sainz would certainly have performed far better than Pierre Gasly. But since Ricciardo left, Red Bull has become Verstappen’s kingdom, he has control – some of it enshrined in his contract – and Sainz could only have been a support act. Despite some troubles during their time together at Toro Rosso in 2015-16, the pair get on well, but Verstappen is the centre of that world now.
Sainz can do a similar thing at Mclaren, not by making himself contracted team leader but by making himself indispensable. He is undisputedly the senior partner, and his performances combined with his all-round contribution should ensure Mclaren regards him an integral part of its rebuilding process.
Sainz is driving well this year. Last season was a tricky one as he struggled with rear-end instability at Renault. While bad luck cost him several top results, notably in France and Mexico where technical problems prevented him winning the midfield battle, he wasn’t as convincing as Nico Hülkenberg. Factoring in Sainz’s experience and setting expectations accordingly, it was his least impressive season
in F1. While he still performed to a good level, it knocked the wind out of his career momentum sails when the whole point of forcing a loan move to Renault had been to take the next step.
This year also started poorly, but not because of what Sainz was doing. He’s joked about seeing “many black cats” in the first three races, with traffic in qualifying, a Bahrain clash with Verstappen and unreliability leaving him pointless after three races. But he’s since emerged as a consistent scorer. In Monaco, he showed how strong he is in a race situation by passing both Toro Rosso drivers on the first lap, while in Austria he executed a brilliant race to finish eighth from the last row of the grid. He might even have been a place
SAINZ IS CAPABLE OF WINNING GRANDS PRIX, NO QUESTION. THE DOUBT NOW IS WHETHER HE WILL HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO SO WITH MCLAREN
or two higher but for front wing damage that no obvious mistake caused.
In Sainz, Mclaren has something of a minialonso on its hands. Like Alonso, he’s not defined by searing single-lap pace – although he’s plenty quick enough – but he’s a relentless performer in races. While some allow their heads to drop, Sainz keeps plugging away and that has helped him take some excellent results over his time in F1. At Toro Rosso, Sainz scored points on average once every 2.2 races, a rate bettered only by Verstappen, and clear of Sebastian Vettel. That ability to keep consistent race pace has been key, along with a capacity for delivering superb drives in the wet, such as Interlagos in 2016 and in the mixed conditions of China in 2017.
Sainz is an intelligent character too, one who has perhaps also learned from the damage to the Red Bull relationship done by the way he got out of Toro Rosso to drive for Renault. If he can become a slightly toned-down Alonso off-track – because no matter where you stand on the two-times world champion’s virtuosity there were times when he made life difficult for himself – then that might make Sainz the perfect driver to spearhead Mclaren for years to come.
Considering what 2019 might have meant for Sainz, that’s perhaps the perfect outcome. Whereas 12 months ago Mclaren was perhaps Sainz’s only option, the question has spun 180 degrees to ask whether Mclaren can keep hold of him long enough to get itself back to the front?
Sainz is capable of winning grands prix, no question. The doubt now is whether he will have the opportunity to do so with Mclaren, which still has a long way to go to build on what has undoubtedly been a superb season so far.