Sainz 'happy' staying at Toro Rosso

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Carlos Sainz insists that he's happy where he is at the moment when it comes to his Formula 1 career.

Sainz is now in his third season racing for Toro Rosso. This time last year, he was overlooked for promotion to Red Bull in favour of his then-team mate Max Verstappen.

But Sainz insisted there were no longer any hard feelings about the decision to put the Dutch teenager ahead of him

"I think I'm in a place where people notice me," he told Spain's El Confidencial ahead of this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix.

"I'm flattered that there are those who think I should have a car fighting for victories and more."

Sainz was also quick to squelch any suggestions that the STR12 was in any way an inferior car.

Max Verstappen promotion upset Carlos Sainz

"I don't think my car is not worthy of me," he insisted. "Toro Rosso is a very serious team. It slowly shows that it can do things very well with a strong technical team.

"Many big teams would want to have James Key," he added, referring to Toro Ross's technical director. "We have our budget, it's not the highest but we still get things done.

"Today I am happy where I am," added the 22-year-old.

Sainz has been in the points in all of the races that he's finished in 2017. He failed to score in Bahrain after colliding with Williams' Lance Stroll, for which he received a three place grid penalty for Sochi.

Despite consequently starting the Russian Grand Prix from 14th place, he still recovered to finish in the top ten.

In the past, Sainz has admitted that he had found it difficult to accept Verstappen being favoured over him for promotion. Verstappen went on to win his maiden race with Red Bull one year ago at Barcelona.

"I tried to show a lot of strength but it was a difficult moment, obviously, because you don't like being overlooked," he said at the end of the season.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.