Carlos Sainz has listed the rivals McLaren needs to be wary off in the 2020 F1 season as he hopes that the mid-field is closer to the Top 3 teams.
Even though the mid-field is unprecedented in terms of competition between its teams, one team usually stands out as ‘best of the rest’. In recent years, this has primarily been McLaren, or Renault. The latter won in F1 2018, but lost to the former in a close fight last year, in 2019.
Looking at 2020, though, McLaren’s Sainz said that at this juncture, Racing Point and AlphaTauri are the ones to beat, while Renault will be in too. Racing Point showed extraordinary pace in testing, and AlphaTauri’s lap times also seemed formidable.
However, much like other drivers who have weighed in on this topic, Sainz did mention that judging such things can be difficult in testing. “I think everyone is looking strong [in the mid-field],” said Sainz to media including FormulaRapida.net.
“I think every single team that you look at, at some point during the test they’ve done a very strong lap time. It’s very difficult to know, who’s in front of the mid-field. I think that Racing Point, the AlphaTauri, and us, probably are the most dangerous guys to beat, I think we’re all going to be in the mix.”
Elaborating more Sainz wants McLaren and other mid-field F1 teams to be closer to the Top 3 teams: “What I really hope is that all of us are going to be closer to the top than we were last year. That would be my biggest wish.
“I wish the mid-field this year could be close enough to the leaders that we don’t get lapped every race, or make sure that [if] the leaders have an accident in lap one and they don’t go through the field and we don’t even try to fight them.
“That would be my biggest thing, you know. Make sure that the whole mid-field closes up. But at the moment it’s difficult to know. The team doesn’t have a clear picture of how far we are from the top three. We will see in FP2 and FP3, when we are on the same fuel loads more or less, and we will see how that is.
“In the mid-field, Racing Point, they’ve been very quick over Barcelona F1 testing. You know they hit the track on the first day and they set a P3, and since then they haven’t improved much because I don’t think they want [to]. That P3 on the first day, I think it impressed all of us, that they are going to be quick. Very quick.
“And the difference you try to spot, you see ten kilos [of fuel] is three, or four tenths around here. If Racing Point or AlphaTauri are ten kilos heavier, or ten kilos lighter there are three or four tenths that they are sandbagging or using so it’s impossible to draw a conclusion.
“Because three tenths in the mid-field you go from being P7 on the grid to P17, so who has the last three tenths in their pocket, or who has used the last three tenths of the car, no one knows. That’s why it’s impossible to know who’s going to be in front in the mid-field because three tenths is ten positions,” summed up Sainz.
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The story is edited by Darshan Chokhani