Carlos Sainz Jr: McLaren still has ‘underlying’ balance issues

Carlos Sainz Jr. says McLaren still has “big areas” where it can improve, pointing to “underlying balance issues” with its MCL34.

Sainz Jr. kept McLaren on top during the second pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya by using Pirelli’s C4 tyres to set a time of 1:17.144 – the fastest of testing so far.

It followed on from team-mate Lando Norris putting McLaren ahead of the pack during Tuesday’s opening day to the second test.

But on his quick lap, Sainz Jr. commented that “if you are clever enough to see our kind of running you will guess that it was a good try,” before assessing where McLaren needs to work.

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“There’s still big areas of improvement definitely,” he said.

“The important stuff to come out of these seven- or eight-hour days is every time I’ve been on the track, I think it’s been progressing.

“The car balance has got better over the last few days, and that is allowing us to extract a bit more from it, so it means the team is working well.

“We are understanding the underlying balance issues and correcting them little by little, but still there is a long season ahead and big areas of improvement where we need to keep working.

“We are still not where we want to be. This is definitely the right answer.

“And we need to keep working hard. A 17:1 around Barcelona is fast but I guess teams like Ferrari and Red Bull can go faster than that so I’m very cautious and calm.”

Sainz Jr. nonetheless expressed confidence that power unit supplier Renault has delivered gains through the off-season.

“My initial guess is I feel it, I feel a good step on the engine and it’s going in the right direction,” he said.

“I still don’t know if the others have improved a lot and that step that I feel is going to worth being closer to our direct competitors or now. But by feeling it, it does feel a good step.”