"Upset" Sainz becoming affected by run of bad luck in 2020

McLaren

"Upset" Sainz becoming affected by run of bad luck in 2020

Sainz believes he has missed out on 30 points through misfortune

Ian Parkes & Nicolas Quarles van Ufford

Saturday 5 September 2020 10:14

Carlos Sainz believes the many instances of bad luck he has suffered this season with McLaren are now starting to affect his driving.

The Spaniard impressively finished last year sixth in the drivers' championship but has so far failed to continue such fine form into this campaign.

A punctured tyre on the penultimate lap at the British Grand Prix when running fourth relegated him to 13th, while a wheel-gun problem during a pit stop in the subsequent race at Silverstone dropped him out of the points.

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In last weekend's Belgian Grand Prix, Sainz failed to start due to a power unit issue that generated an exhaust blowout. He claims the run of misfortune is now starting to get the better of him.

"Last year, I got a run of two to three races with bad luck with results not going your way," said Sainz. "As long as it is not your fault you can digest it pretty quickly.

"But this year, seven races, there is not a lot actually that has gone right for me apart from the first race in Austria and [then] Barcelona.

"All the other races, there has been an issue. I have had a problem and lost out on at least 30 points in this championship which hurts quite a lot and starts to affect me.

"I am starting to get a little bit upset by it, but at least it hasn't been my fault and I just need to keep digging and need to keep working."

McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl empathised with Sainz, saying he "fully understands he's disappointed."

After breaking down all of Sainz's unfortunate moments, Seidl explained reliability is not the main concern for McLaren.

"I think in terms of reliability, the issue was actually only the last race where he couldn’t even start and lost out on many points after an engine issue," said Seidl. "But then we had other topics as well.

"We had the tyre failure in Silverstone where he lost a lot of points. But also on the team side, not everything went to plan.

"We lost out on some points with issues we had at the pitstops early in the season and that’s obviously something to look into."

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