Carlos Sainz Jr says that the weekend at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza highlighted the shortfalls of the STR12 as the team struggled to a twelfth and fourteenth place finish on Sunday.
For the first time in 2017, in the races they both finished, Sainz was beaten to the chequered flag by team-mate Daniil Kvyat, but the Spaniard says he cannot use having Renault engines as an excuse, especially seeing how fast the two Red Bull Racing drivers were on Sunday.
Daniel Ricciardo climbed from sixteenth on the grid to finish an excellent fourth, while Max Verstappen ended tenth in the second RB13 despite suffering a puncture in the opening few laps and coming through from the back.
Neither Toro Rosso driver had anywhere near a similar pace, and Sainz insists the team need to be looking at improving their package, so to be able take a step forward with their pace and fight once again for points.
“In general we cannot put all of our blames onto Renault this weekend,” admitted Sainz. “Red Bull shows that even without the most competitive power unit, you can still look good in circuits like Monza.
“For us, we just didn’t have a good package for coming into Monza and we must learn from it and see what’s our defects and solve them for Singapore because we need to start bringing some good results, just take a step forward.”
