Carlos Sainz is confident there is still plenty of room for improvement despite what he called a “close to perfect” first race with Renault as he finished seventh at the United States GP.
It was an excellent weekend for the Spaniard as he stepped straight into the seat previously filled by Jolyon Palmer and gave new teammate Nico Hulkenberg the competitive partner he has lacked as they engaged in a very close battle in practice.
Unfortunately, engine penalties for the German prevented their battling from continuing, but the first time after stepping out of the Red Bull environment that he has been used for so long, the 23-year-old proved himself more than capable to lead the charge for the French manufacturer.
“So far, we’ve done our first weekend very close to perfect,” Sainz said. “We need to continue like that. Thanks to all of them for making me feel so at home right from the beginning and giving me a competitive car.”
Highlighting how strong his debut was, he would take the fight to the lead midfield team Force India and split their two drivers after an amazing move on Sergio Perez. But, for the second generation driver, that was just a first step and expects to be much stronger as he continues to settle in.
“I think we have still a big margin of improvement, all of us, but it will come with more races and more experience,” he claimed. “It’s very difficult to have gone any better than it has been. We put together a really, really strong weekend right from FP1 to the last lap of the race.
“Even in the race we went from less to more, we were picking up pace, attacking first Checo and then Esteban. A shame I ran out of fuel in the last three or four laps and I couldn’t attack Esteban, but really fun.”
Another man delighted by the showing of Sainz was Renault Sport Managing Director Cyril Abiteboul, who described his new employee’s first weekend on the job as “remarkable”.
“It’s not easy to change teams in the middle of a season,” the Frenchman continued. There have been previous circumstances when things have not happened that way in other teams in the history of F1.
“It’s a move that we were all looking forward to. There was lots of preparation put into that. It’s not easy with a busy weekend between Suzuka and this race. A lot has happened to get everything ready and that is to the credit of him first but also to the team that has done such a good job altogether.”
