Breaking news

Formula 1

Sainz doubts McLaren will break out of F1 midfield in 2019

Carlos Sainz thinks McLaren's progress this year will still not be enough for it to escape the midfield battles over the remainder of the campaign.

Jonathan Noble

Edited: Sep 9, 2019, 11:46 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Carlos Sainz Jr., McLaren MCL34, leads Lando Norris, McLaren MCL34, and Kimi Raikkonen, Alfa Romeo Racing C38

Although the Woking-based outfit is in a solid fourth place in the constructors' championship, Sainz is sceptical of the team being able to make enough gains in the short term to shake off its nearest rivals.

"I don't think we are going to be able to break out of the midfield in the second half of the season," he said when asked by Motorsport.com about his predictions for the second half of the year.

"We might bring a few tenths to the car which will be great, but everyone else is going to bring them, so we need to be careful.

"What we need to make sure is that we learn the right steps to do on the car this year and learn them for next year. That is the main target for the second half of this season: learn about this car to make sure that we put all the things in the right place for next year's car."

Read Also:

Sainz's view on the prospects for the remainder of 2019 have been backed by his team boss Andreas Seidl, who thinks that despite his team's solid standing in the constructors' standings that the outfit must not imagine it is in the clear yet.

"We have seen how quickly it can change and we have seen how close the others are in the race, so in the end it will depend upon track layouts and temperatures and things like that," he explained.

"It will also depend on how much more updates everyone will bring in the second half of the season and when everyone switches to next year's car.

"But it is good to have this gap at the moment in the points standing. For us it is important to not get carried away with that. It's heads down and make sure we keep fighting."

Although sceptical about the gains possible for this year, Sainz says the pace of the McLaren over a long stint in Hungary – when at a certain stage it was faster than Ferrari – has given tremendous cause for optimism.

"I was told on the radio that on the last five laps [of the first stint] we were faster than the Ferraris, so everybody was getting pumped up," he said.

"We are starting to see some progress on the car with the tyre management, so that last part of that first stint has given us hopes and ambition to know that we can keep closing on the top guys."

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article McLaren’s F1 progress crucial to IndyCar expansion

Next article Four good races doesn't mean "everything is fantastic" in F1

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Valtteri Bottas "pretty confident" of staying for F1 2027 amid Colton Herta rumours

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

50 min

Valtteri Bottas "pretty confident" of staying for F1 2027 amid Colton Herta rumours

Rally legend Carlos Sainz drives WRC Ford Puma Rally1 to victory

Other rally

Misc Other rally 2 h

Rally legend Carlos Sainz drives WRC Ford Puma Rally1 to victory

Dizziness to blame for Joan Mir's Malaysian GP retirement

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Malaysian GP

2 h

Dizziness to blame for Joan Mir's Malaysian GP retirement

Fernando Alonso 'beyond frustration' after engine issue in F1 Mexico GP qualifying

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

3 h

Fernando Alonso 'beyond frustration' after engine issue in F1 Mexico GP qualifying

Feature

Discover prime content

The fine margins that cost George Russell pole in Mexico

Formula 1

Mexican GP

By Stuart Codling

The fine margins that cost George Russell pole in Mexico

Why Isack Hadjar deserves a medal, not a warning, after paddock "incident"

Formula 1

Mexican GP

By Stuart Codling

Why Isack Hadjar deserves a medal, not a warning, after paddock "incident"

What we learned from Friday practice at the 2026 Mexico GP

Formula 1

Mexican GP

By Jake Boxall-Legge

What we learned from Friday practice at the 2026 Mexico GP

What’s the state of play at F1’s smallest team?

Formula 1

By Jake Boxall-Legge

What’s the state of play at F1’s smallest team?

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts