Carlos Sainz Jr. labelled his McLaren debut as a “weekend to forget” after becoming the first retirement of the season at the Australian Grand Prix.
Sainz Jr. had dropped out in Q1 – faster than only the Williams drivers – after being hampered by the slow and damaged Williams of Robert Kubica on the final runs in the session, when the rapid rate of track evolution resulted in substantial time improvements.
That left Sainz Jr. 18th on the grid and he lasted only a handful of laps before a suspected MGU-K failure caused a fire at the rear of his MCL34, leaving him out of the race.
“It’s been a weekend to forget,” he said.
“I think we lost the MGU-K, which was a shame as the race was going well. I’d put qualifying behind me and I was feeling positive.
“I’d done everything I wanted to do: I made a good start, overtaking four cars, getting in the fight for the points and starting to attack the cars in front.
“The car felt good, we had strong pace and I was fighting with other cars that ended up in the points, which shows us that points could have been possible.
“This one hurts, but this is Formula 1.
“My season has started with a really unlucky weekend but hopefully we can start having more positive results from Bahrain onwards. I’m happy to put this one behind me and keep pushing.”
McLaren team-mate Lando Norris started from eighth position but lost ground at the start and was hampered by spending several laps behind the yet-to-stop Antonio Giovinazzi.
It meant Norris classified in 12th place on his Formula 1 debut, leaving McLaren as just one of two teams – along with Williams – to leave Melbourne empty-handed.
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