Carlos Sainz says the success with McLaren in 2019 F1 season was not a revenge on Red Bull Racing and Renault.
Despite moving away from Red Bull and Renault for 2019 F1 season, Sainz states that his motivation for going to McLaren was not to get revenge and that the success he has had this year is not and answer to those teams for not taking him.
The Spaniard moved from Toro Rosso to Renault to replace Jolyon Palmer in the middle of the 2017 season, and stayed at the French marque for a full year in 2018, when Daniel Ricciardo took his seat within the team for the 2019 F1 season.
The 25 year-old moved to McLaren, despite talk of a potential switch to Red Bull to fill Ricciardo’s place and has since outscored both the Renault drivers in the drivers’ championship, as well as Red Bull-backed Alexander Albon, Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat.
While he is very happy with the results, Sainz denied that he did not seek revenge in 2019. “I didn’t go into this season with willing revenge or anything like that,” he said. “I have a lot of friends in Renault and in Red Bull who I still feel are happy for me to do well now.
“I got a lot of messages from people, congratulating me and at the same time you go into a F1 season just wanting to perform at your best, the same way I went into 2017, 2018 and this year I’ve just got the results on board and I’m just very proud of it.”
He also went on to further explain his actual motive to move to McLaren in the first place, which he put down to ‘good vibes’. “I had good feelings when I moved to McLaren, even if things didn’t look very promising at the end of 2018,” said Sainz.
“I did have some conversations with a lot of engineers, a lot of people, Zak. I don’t know, the project itself just gave me good vibes. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the good results but those good vibes translated very quickly into results.
“The change of approach by McLaren, a very big change in the structure of the team, and all of a sudden we’re here with one race to go, having secured fourth in the standings, the first podium in five years and, all of a sudden, it looks like the right move.
“I’m very happy, and very pleased to see such a great group of people performing at such a very high level and being so hungry and motivated to move forwards still.” Along with McLaren ending as best of rest, Sainz as well was sixth behind the Top 5 drivers.
Here’s what Lando Norris said regarding his F1 debut in 2019
Horner explains picking Albon, praises performances of Gasly and Sainz
The story was written by Duncan Leahy and edited by Darshan Chokhani
