Carlos Sainz Jr. admits it wasn’t an “ideal” practice day at the Circuit de Monaco ahead of this weekends Monaco Grand Prix.
The Spaniard only did four laps in Free Practice 1 as he missed almost the whole session. His McLaren F1 Team were forced to change part of his McLaren and he could only venture out onto the track at the end of the session for a couple of laps.
“Well, obviously it hasn’t been an ideal Thursday in Monaco.
“Missing out the whole of FP1 isn’t the way you want to start a Monaco Grand Prix, but the mechanics made a great effort to change the ES pack and get me back out at the end of the session, just to do one lap and see how everything felt.”
Sainz completed significantly more laps during Free Practice 2 as he just fell short of the half century mark in the second ninety minute session but despite this, Sainz knows he has lost a lot of laps compared to everyone else.
“FP2 went better but obviously I am 30-40 laps behind my competitors and there are things to improve on the car.”
The Spanish driver has one practice session left to gain back lost time and he knows the team have to be smart on how they use the session to make sure they are ready for qualifying.
“It’s important to get up to speed little-by-little, so we need to be intelligent when recovering the time lost.
“Quali is what really matters and there is still margin to work and improve.”
