Heads you drive for Red Bull Racing, tails you're part of the emerging Renault team's line-up. Not a bad coin toss for Carlos Sainz for the 2019 Formula 1 season. But what if it lands on its side? Then the best laid plans of Sainz and men go awry, which is why the 24-year old currently finds himself as McLaren's spearhead.

Sainz is clad in papaya in 2019 thanks to a combination of the cascade effect on the driver market caused by Daniel Ricciardo's defection to Renault and Red Bull's reluctance to recall its Spaniard given the way he agitated for a loan move away. McLaren was the right move on the basis of 'any port in a storm', and the first time he faced the massed ranks of the F1 media at Spa last year after the deal was done, Sainz wasn't convincing.