Carlos Sainz is happy to be staying put at McLaren in 2020 after the "weird" experience of how his relatively brief tenure at Renault came to an end 12 months ago.
Sainz made his Formula 1 debut in the 2015 Australian Grand Prix with Toro Rosso and stayed with the team for 56 races. But midway through the 2017 season he was loaned out to Renault as part of a complicated engine deal arrangement involving the two teams, Honda and McLaren.
The Spaniard has expected to stay at Enstone in 2019, but those hopes were dashed when Renault opted to sign Daniel Ricciardo instead. But Sainz landed on his feet when he was signed to a two-year deal by McLaren.
Not only has that borne immediate fruit this season with his maiden podium finish last time out in Brazil, the sense of consistency also puts him into a stronger position heading into next year.
"I'm a strong believer that the more time a driver spends in one team, the faster that driver becomes with that car," he told Motorsport.com this week. "That's a rule that you can see pretty much in every team."
Sainz cited the examples of Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez as evidence for his theory.
"You can see it with Max in Red Bull, that for the longer he's been in Red Bull he's just been stronger and stronger. And Lewis with Mercedes, he's been stronger and stronger every year.
"Checo in Racing Point, a more midfield example,- that guy knows that Racing Point - and that team - very well, and that helps them execute very strong race weekends."
Sainz is hoping that the same will now be true for him and that he'll be able to input into the development of next year's McLaren.
"I was kind of looking forward to joining McLaren in that way, with a two-year deal," he said. "We are already working on the simulator on next year's car, already developing every weekend and giving ideas to the factory to what do we need for next year's car."
©McLaren
Sainz said that having longer-term stability was certainly better than last year when he had one foot in the Renault camp while being halfway out the door heading to McLaren.
"That probably also made the second half of the season with Renault quite weird," he acknowledged.
"This year I've been more [focused on] the mid-term project, not so much the short-term and having to perform like I was having to do in Toro Rosso and Renault.
"That helped me also to combat those couple of difficult moments in the year," he added, saying that it meant he had been more relaxed and in less of a rush to "prove myself" this season.
"I always have a rush to get good results, obviously," he added. "But thanks to that mid-term project and the way we're handling the year and everything, I thought it was easier to overcome them."
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