The McLaren F1 Team‘s Carlos Sainz Jr. has said he is happy that he was able to make it into Qualifying 3 and secure sixth place on the grid for tomorrow’s French Grand Prix at the Circuit Paul Ricard.
Team-mate Lando Norris also impressed, qualifying just ahead in fifth, marking McLaren’s best qualifying result since 2014.
“First of all, big congratulations to the whole team and also the team back at the factory,” said Sainz Jr.
“I think this is a consequence of all the hard work that is going on back there, and the upgrades that we’ve been bringing recently.
“It just shows that we need to keep pushing and keep going in this direction. Secondly, on the personal side, I would say it’s been a bit of a tough weekend, even if it doesn’t look like it.”
Sainz Jr. said McLaren was trialling numerous upgrades during the course of practice yesterday, meaning he was not as comfortable in the car as he should have been, although acknowledged he had been able to make the best of qualifying.
“I was trying a lot of experimental things yesterday and that probably made me be a bit on the back foot for today. I was not fully comfortable with the car, but I still managed to more-or-less recover and feel better today.”
He added: “We put in some good laps in quali to reach sixth in front of our rivals, and making it to Qualifying 3 with the medium tyre gives us a good fighting chance for the race.
“Now we have to finish the job tomorrow.”
