Sainz remains confident despite back-to-back DNFs

Carlos Sainz may have suffered successive retirements in his first two races as a McLaren driver, but the Spaniard still remains confident ahead of the rest of the 2019 season.

It may seem like a nightmare start for Sainz at McLaren but he is still running high on confidence after the side's competitive showing in both races.

Lando Norris recorded a sixth-place finish in Bahrain to really encourage the Woking-based team, despite Sainz managing just nine laps in Australia and not many more in Bahrain.

"I am very encouraged about the pace of the car, about my feeling with my car," Sainz said to Crash.net. "I think you could see in those first three or four laps (in Bahrain) how easily I could keep up with the Mercedes and the Red Bull, how easily I was attempting a move on Max (Verstappen) at the earliest opportunity.

"So, there are a lot of positives to take. I still have a smile on my face because of that and I'm not going to let an accident like this one ruin my confidence, because my confidence is really high at the moment."

McLaren's competitiveness so far this season has been evident, with both Sainz and Norris reaching Q3 in Bahrain - marking the team's best combined qualifying result since the 2017 Malaysian Grand Prix.