Carlos Sainz admits he was “shocked” by McLaren’s pace after a strong final day of testing in Barcelona.
It’s been a low-key winter for the British team on the whole, but on Friday, the Spaniard completed 159 laps with the eighth-best time having had the MCL35 all to himself.
Even halfway through his day though, Sainz was feeling very positive about the performance he was seeing.
“I’m happy with the progress made so far,” he told F1TV in the lunch break. “I’m especially happy with – we managed to have a good day of testing today.
“We managed to test three or four things that I had in the back of my mind and put a run plan together to make sure I tested them before Australia. I managed to the conclusions, and for me, it was a good test day is based on that.”
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With the afternoon handed over to long runs, the thrill of a lower fuel lap came just before lunch and though it was only the eighth fastest time, the figures were impressive.
“It’s good fun,” continued Sainz. “I mean, a 1m16.8s on a C3 tyre in Barcelona feels special, feels quick. I think we are all quite shocked in a good way with how fast we are and how much we are enjoying this 2020 car.
“I think we’ve made a lot of progress compared to last year. I think the car, looking at the data, we a much quicker pretty much everywhere compared to last year, so I am very happy about that.
“Now, it depends on how much progress the others have made.”
That 1m16.8s was only six-tenths off the pace set by Valtteri Bottas, with the Mercedes driver using the C5 compound to achieve it.