Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris had plenty to smile about after scoring McLaren’s best result in a year on Sunday in Baku.
Starting inside the top 10 thanks to the penalties for both Alfa Romeo’s, the pair would push Sergio Perez for ‘best of the rest’ in sixth but ultimately, have to settle for seventh and eighth.
For Sainz, it would mark his first points since joining the British team as the promise of the opening races would finally be realised.
“On a personal level, this one is a bit of a relief,” the Spaniard commented.
“After three races where I had the pace I had today but had three consecutive instances of bad luck happen to us, today we didn’t have any issues and we just demonstrated what we are capable of doing.
“We had great pace all weekend really,” Sainz noted.
“It was a shame that I couldn’t use it yesterday in qualifying because of yellow flags, but today within eight laps I was back to where I wanted to be which was attacking the Racing Point in front.
“Since then we showed really good pace, we were managing the tyres to the end behind Lando and Perez. The [Virtual] Safety Car gave Perez an extra half a second, second of lap time and we couldn’t pass him, but in general very happy.”
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Norris would be the lead McLaren for much of the race and was even in a position to challenge Max Verstappen in the opening laps.
But a decision to make a late stop for softs didn’t reap the pace advantage he and the team were hoping for.
“I’m happy, as a team we didn’t win or lose points from where we were before the stop,” the 19-year-old commented.
“We just wanted something to see if we could have a bigger advantage over Checo to get ahead as we didn’t have the straight line speed to pass him.
“It wasn’t a win or a loss in the end, we just swapped positions basically. I’m happy with seventh and eighth, good points for the team.”
The 10 points have pushed McLaren into fourth in the Constructors’ standings as their strong start to 2019 continues.
