Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsToro Rosso

Sainz Jr keen ‘to look the least rookie’

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Carlos Sainz Jr says the aim for his first season in F1 is “to look the least rookie” throughout the year.

Toro Rosso will field an all-rookie line-up of Sainz Jr and Max Verstappen, with Felipe Nasr also set to start his first grand prix in Melbourne driving for Sauber. Daniil Kvyat steps up to Red Bull this year after just one season in F1 and Sainz Jr says his focus is to ensure he makes fewer mistakes than other inexperienced drivers on the grid.

“I would say my main target is to look the least rookie as possible,” Sainz Jr told F1i. “Obviously I am going to be a rookie, I will make rookie mistakes but I would like to show everyone that even if I’m a rookie then I make the least rookie mistakes as possible.

“I think this is already a tough thing to achieve. To be consistent in your first season in Formula One should be my main target. Where I’m going to finish I have no idea. This will depend on how the first race goes in Australia, where we are and where we will be fighting for the rest of the year.”

With his father being two-time World Rally Champion Carlos Sainz, the younger Sainz says he is hoping to make sure people acknowledge him as a driver in his own right.

“It’s the case of stopping people saying I’m ‘the son of’, but he will never be ‘the father of’! He will always be Carlos Sainz in rallies, and hopefully now you will have a long version of Carlos Sainz in Formula One. That’s good because it would have been very easy to compare me with my dad if I had gone rallying. Now it’s impossible to compare us; it’s a completely different discipline and you can have the two versions now.”

Feature - Carlos Sainz Jr: Racing with your hero

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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.