Carlos Sainz eyes the continuation of a strong record at the Monaco Grand Prix on his first trip with McLaren.
The British team has enjoyed a good start to this season, sitting fourth in the Constructors’ standings and easily have the best record in Monte Carlo with 15 wins.
While that kind of result is unlikely this year, the Sainz/McLaren combination could be a dark horse in the midfield.
“My focus this weekend is on consistency and finding the limit with patience and confidence in the car,” he said in his race preview.
“I’ve always been in Q3 and scored points here in the past, so the target is to keep that record going for this year and improve as much as possible.”
In fact, in four previous trips, Sainz has finished no worse than 10th with a best of P6 in 2017.
“Monaco is such a special race on the F1 calendar. The history, the track and the atmosphere the whole week makes it something absolutely unique,” the Spaniard added.
“Obviously, it can be very tricky to overtake here, so setting the car up on Thursday and Saturday morning is more crucial here than anywhere else for a strong result in qualifying and hopefully the race.”
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In contrast, teammate Lando Norris is preparing for his first Monaco GP as an F1 driver but does have some pedigree on the famous street circuit.
“I’m looking forward to heading back to Monaco, it’s a really cool circuit and I managed to get on the podium there last year in F2,” he noted.
“My target is to put in a good performance in qualifying and place ourselves in a position to take advantage of any mid-race drama. The key to scoring points here is to ensure we have a clean race.”