WHAT’S ON
WOKING: Spanish driver Carlos Sainz got into the Valentine’s Day spirit by declaring “love at first sight” yesterday as McLaren showed off their 2019 Formula One car and line-up.
The blue and pawpaw orange MCL34 car was unveiled by 34 team employees at the former champions’ Woking headquarters before Sainz and 19-yearold British rookie teammate Lando Norris stepped up to admire it.
“I like the new colours. My teammate, I’ll see in a couple of months if I like him,” joked Sainz, 24, who has joined from Renault.
The pair, replacing Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne, are McLaren’s first all-new driver line-up in 12 years and former reserve Norris, 19, is the Renaultpowered team’s youngest ever driver.
“I’ve got a lot to live up to,” said the teenager. “There is a lot on my shoulders, a lot of people relying on myself and Carlos.”
McLaren, the once-dominant team of champions like Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, have not won a race since 2012 or a championship since Lewis Hamilton’s first in 2008.
They finished sixth overall last year, an improvement on three years with Honda in which they plumbed the depths of disappointment.
The overall position was flattered, however, by Force India being stripped of all their points and being replaced by Racing Point, and McLaren still have a long way to go to catch the sport’s top manufacturer teams.
Team boss Zak Brown, who has brought in new sponsors and presided over a management shake-up that saw racing director Eric Boullier leave last year, recognised it would be a long road back from sixth place.
“We’re in a rebuilding process and it’s going to be a journey,” said the American, who will have James Key joining as technical head later in the year after a long “gardening leave” from Toro Rosso.
Former Porsche Le Mans team boss Andreas Siedl will join as managing director on May 1. | Reuters WEST INDIES fast bowler Shannon Gabriel sought to clear the air over what he said to England captain Joe Root and extended an “unreserved apology” for his comments during the third Test against England in St Lucia.
Gabriel, 30, had accepted a charge for breaching the ICC’s code of conduct on Wednesday and was banned for the first four one-day internationals against England that begin on Wednesday. “The exchange occurred during a tense moment on the field,” Gabriel,
said
“The pressure was on and England’s captain Joe Root was looking at me intensely as I prepared to bowl, which may have been the usual psychological strategy with which all Test cricketers are familiar.
“I recognise now that I was attempting to break through my own tension when I said to Joe Root: ‘Why are you smiling at me? Do you like boys?’
“His response, which was picked up by the microphone, was: ‘Don’t use it as an insult. There’s nothing wrong with being gay.’ I then responded: ‘I have no issues with that, but you should stop smiling at me.’”
Gabriel also said there were no hard feelings between him and Root and that he saw this incident as an opportunity to recognise the “need for sensitivity and respect”. |