Carlos Sainz was "critical" of McLaren to push them to success

Carlos Sainz has been impressed with McLaren so far this season but has remembered his feelings when he joined the team after their poor results in 2018. Sainz is currently 7th in the driver's championship and will be hoping to finish the season 'best of the rest.' McLaren's development has been a surprise to some but it is all down to the hard work of the team.   

“When I arrived I saw an extremely motivated team, even after one of its worst seasons," Sainz said to Auto Motor und Sport. "This gave me good feelings for 2019, although clearly there were also question marks. But from the wind tunnel, everything seemed to go in the right direction, it was clear that it would not have gone worse than 2018."

Sainz and Lando Norris played a vital role in Winter testing to ensure McLaren were on the right track. 

"Norris and I were rather critical of the team, but because there were signs of weakness. We weren't looking at the central classification cars but at Ferrari and Mercedes. In the curves, we were very far from both."

They have gone on to have a great season so far, sitting comfortably 4th in the constructor's championship. 

"I noticed the first positive signs in Bahrain because the car responded well to the first package of updates. The next step took place in Spain, where we improved on slow corners. The important thing will be to understand this season's car well, to steer the development for that of 2020. I don't think we will be able to break away from the middle rankings already in this championship, we would need a half-second jump."

McLaren will hope to build on this year's performance and push to get back to the top of Formula 1 over the next few years.