Carlos Sainz admits he would have no problem at all remaining a Renault driver for 2019, even as his future is dependent on others.
The Spaniard is on loan at the Enstone team after switching from Toro Rosso as part of the engine deal which saw Honda move from McLaren to the junior Red Bull team and Renault in the other direction for this season.
However, he is still considered the first driver in line to be called up to the senior team should Daniel Ricciardo decide to leave the Milton Keynes outfit at the end of this year.
Well aware of that fact, the second generation driver still concedes he wouldn’t be disappointed to stay at Renault.
“Actually I’m happy where I am, I think this team has a lot of potential and, whatever happens, I’m very proud of how we are doing things here at Renault,” he told newspaper El Pais over the weekend.
“For me, it would be a pleasure to stay.”
Despite currently being little more than the lead midfield team and still quite some way off the top three teams, Sainz is most excited by the projection the French manufacturer is on.
“They were away from F1 for five years so this is a process of regrouping, of reforming and of going little by little in the right direction, improving,” he claimed.
“I think the team is very ambitious and knows how to win, because it has won in the past, and that is a plus that other teams may not have.”
There was some disappointment at the company’s first home race in a decade last weekend as a late failure of the MGU-K, akin to Ricciardo in Monaco, saw Carlos drop from sixth to eighth.
“We were having such a good weekend from start to finish. We had a strong qualifying, made a clean start running in the top three early on, and then controlling sixth,” he explained.
“The second half of the race was fast-paced and we were managing it well until the sudden problem, which cost us two or three seconds a lap.
“It’s a shame and I feel sorry for the whole team, as I think we deserved to be best of the rest today. These things happen in racing, and it’s my first reliability issue of the year, so let’s move on and start preparing for Austria.”
For this weekend’s race at the Red Bull Ring, Renault will introduce a new MGU-K which has been on the test bench for well over a year.
