Carlos Sainz Jr. revealed that his R.S.18 shut down ‘without warning’ as he run inside the top eight during the Mexican Grand Prix, ending his chance of joining team-mate Nico Hülkenberg inside the points.
The Renault Sport Formula One Team showed themselves to be the fourth fastest team on the day at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and Sainz had made a good start to put himself into prime position to be the best of the rest, only for the car to give up on him in the stadium section just as he was about to be lapped by race leader Max Verstappen.
Sainz says the reliability has not been too bad for the works Renault team in 2018 but when it happens it seems to be when they are fighting high up inside the top ten, which left him frustrated not to be able to secure points in Mexico.
“Today was a big shame,” said Sainz. “We were leading the midfield comfortably and in contention for some good points and then, without warning, the car shut down.
“It’s really frustrating after making such a good start on lap one, but that’s racing. We’ve not had too many reliability issues this season, but when I have, it’s been when I’ve been leading the midfield, so that’s a bit of bad luck and coincidental for it to happen again today. We’ll investigate the issue and move on.”
One positive for Sainz was that team-mate Hülkenberg was able to convert his strong start into a second sixth place finish in as many weeks so to further extend their advantage over the Haas F1 Team in their battle for fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.
“We’ll keep fighting, aim to score points at the last two rounds and look to secure fourth in the Constructors’ Championship,” said Sainz. “We deserved more, but at least Nico stayed in the points, so it’s not a bad result for the team.
“Congratulations to Lewis Hamilton for his fifth title.”
