Carlos Sainz has revealed a freak problem with his drinks bottle caused him to "almost vomit" during Sunday's Australian GP.

The Spaniard had a relatively subdued first race of the season, with a mistake fighting Fernando Alonso allowing the McLaren driver past, but inside the cockpit, it was a personal fight just to make the finish.

"I had the drinks bottle pumping water through my mouth since Lap 1 and I was drinking and drinking and drinking and I just got full of water in my stomach,” he explained.

"I wasn’t feeling good with the stomach with all the water inside, going from side to side it was very difficult.

"At some point under the Safety Car I nearly had to vomit, so from there on it was just about making it to the finish. It is a bit unfortunate."

Eventually, the Renault driver would benefit from the demise of both Haas cars to finish ninth in what was a disappointing result given the strong performance in qualifying, but Sainz is at least pleased with the baseline the Enstone team has.

"It was a positive start, I’m happy with the performance over the weekend," he said.

"I think I could have done much more without the problems and with better car handling in the first stint. We keep learning and we’ll be putting the work in ahead of Bahrain."

Teammate Nico Hulkenberg finished two places ahead of his Red Bull-backed partner in seventh, however, the German's biggest disappointment from the first weekend of the new season is the performance gap to the top three.

"The guys ahead of us were a long way ahead," he noted. "We wanted to reduce the gap in the winter, but it seems that it has grown even more. That is not good. We have a lot of work to do."