Carlos Sainz believes too much focus is on the negative impact of the current era of Formula 1 cars when it comes to wheel-to-wheel racing.
This year will see amendments made to both the front and rear wings in an effort to improve the aerodynamics and encourage closer action with more overtaking.
The possible detriment will come to performance, however, with the 2019 cars expected to be slower initially than their 2018 predecessors.
While Sainz accepts there is perhaps an over-reliance on aids like DRS nowadays to promote overtaking, he does think there are other aspects that are overlooked.
“This is a change in reaction a bit to what we saw last year in Australia, the first race,” said the Spaniard, when fans were left unimpressed by the lack of action on track.
“I think the racing is still not good enough, we need to keep working towards 2021 on a better show, better spectacle for the fans and drivers and also start creating a hype.
“Right now there’s a bit of a negative hype regarding the racing, the cars, but people tend to forget that last years were fastest ever in F1 and no one talked about that.” the new McLaren driver noted.
“I get a bit nervous because everyone talks about 2004, how cool were those cars, but no one talks about 2018 and Lewis Hamilton’s pole positions being the fastest ever F1 laps in history.
While Hamilton did break a number of circuit records, the honour of the fastest ever lap actually belongs to Kimi Raikkonen, who achieved that with his pole at Monza last year.
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As for the changes coming for 2019, views have been mixed from designers and engineers on how effective they’ll be and Sainz admits it is too early as a driver to predict.
“Until I test it on track it’s going to be impossible for me to tell but I welcome the change because it’s a change trying to make the racing better,” he said.
“If it’s a change to make racing better and it has been planned well by Liberty and the FIA and it’s proved in simulations to be better, I think as a Formula 1 fan and driver, I welcome that.
“We need to be careful, we need to test it first but I welcome it.”
