"McLaren is going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future"

Carlos Sainz has left McLaren for a new adventure at Ferrari. In the two years at McLaren, the Spaniard helped take the team from sixth to third place in the championship. And Sainz predicts that it will not stop there.

Changes at McLaren

Sainz's place at McLaren is taken by Daniel Ricciardo, but there is more to play for the British team. Next season the team will switch to the Mercedes engine, a new wind tunnel will be built and there will be new investors.

Sainz thinks the team can come even further forward in the coming years. "There's still a bit of a long way to go on car performance. We're still losing one second to Mercedes per lap. But at the same time, I think the team is forming really nicely into 2022, which is the big regulation change, when I think this team is going to be ready to hit the ground running," says Sainz on Motorsport.com. "It's going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future, I think."

No expectations

When Sainz joined McLaren at the end of 2018, there were no expectations. "We started off from zero in 2018, so there were no expectations, there were no real hard feelings from anyone. I immediately felt at home, and I immediately felt that the group of people there were incredibly motivated, incredibly proud to be part of McLaren. They really wanted the team to move forward. Everyone put together all their efforts, and that momentum carried through the first year into the second year.”

From that moment on, the performance got better and better. "It's just easier, when you are on an upward trend like we've been on these two years, and the momentum keeps building, the relationships keep getting better, and the team keeps improving. I'm very proud of having been part of it. It's definitely a memory I will take with me forever in my career."