Carlos Sainz Jr. believes not over-reacting to a difficult run of results in the early grands prix of 2019 has been key to his rise up Formula 1’s midfield pecking order.
Sainz Jr. failed to finish after his McLaren MCL34 was stranded by an MGU-K failure in Australia, while early clashes put paid to his races in Bahrain and China.
It left Sainz Jr. without a point from the opening trio of events but since then he has failed to reach the top 10 just once, and has vaulted up the standings.
Successive fifth-place finishes prior to the summer break cemented Sainz Jr.’s status as ‘best of the rest’ and he holds P7 overall, 27 points clear of next opponent Kimi Raikkonen, and just five adrift of ex-Red Bull racer Pierre Gasly.
“Well given how badly it started, the first few races, and how unlucky I was during those two or three races, to be where I am at the moment is very positive,” said Sainz Jr.
“The key there was to not over-react to the first few races, I think just keep doing what I was doing and as soon as the luck turned around a bit the results started coming.
“Since there honestly, since Baku, it’s been a very strong season, so I can’t complain.”
Sainz Jr. also asserted that his failure to score points early on was down to misfortune as opposed to needing to get up to speed in his new surroundings at McLaren.
“Honestly it took me less time to adapt to McLaren than it took me to adapt to Renault,” he said.
“In Australia FP1, FP2, FP3 I was really fast, in Bahrain I was really fast in qualifying, I was fighting Max [Verstappen] for a top five place.
“I was there during those three races but somehow the result never clicked, then as soon as the result arrived in Baku it started going smoother.”
