Sainz 'happy' with new F1 power unit after cooling issue fix in Spain
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Carlos Sainz says he’s much happier with his new Formula 1 power unit after his last one appeared to be the cause of the cooling issue which plagued his 70th Anniversary Grand Prix last weekend.Check out the F1 YouTube channel – CLICK HEREThe Spaniard has endured a difficult start to 2020 with a series of poor pit stops and a recent cooling issue compromising his chances of big points.Ahead of this weekend, McLaren said it was unsure what was causing Sainz’s McLaren to overheat but it appears that giving him a new engine has solved it.Speaking after qualifying seventh at his home race, Sainz said: “New engine, new life… finally, I think we got to the end of the problem by changing the engine so happy with that. Honestly, I didn’t like the engine I had before that – both in performance and reliability was not giving us much so I am happier today.” Sainz believed P6 on the grid ahead of Red Bull’s Alexander Albon was possible if his final sector was better. “Not very happy with my last sector. I think I could have sneaked a bit more performance but I don’t know why since Q1 I couldn’t improve on my last sector. I was very happy with sector one and sector two – I was flying in sector one actually but sector three for some reason never got quicker. Maybe we could have caught Albon with a cleaner sector three but P7 is still decent.”McLaren team-mate Lando Norris qualified eighth and he says he was surprised to see his team perform so well after a difficult Friday.“A bit surprising really,” Norris added. “I think yesterday we weren’t the most confident and we came in today and made some good improvements on the car, and looked a bit more competitive. Into qualifying, we took a little bit of a step in competitiveness. For whatever reason, I think we have a bit to try to understand, especially because we weren’t thinking these hot temperatures weren’t going to suit us as much.“I think looking back on it, it was a good qualifying, could have been a little bit better. From my side, I made a small mistake in my final quali lap and I was one-tenth quicker on my final new set of tyres compared to my old set so a little bit disappointed I did not extract more out of them but it’s a good position for tomorrow.”
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