Sainz: Monaco is about patience and confidence

Carlos Sainz says “patience and confidence” will be required this weekend as he chases a top-ten showing at the Monaco Grand Prix.

The Spaniard, who joined McLaren at the start of this year’s championship, has scored in every Monaco race that he has contested in F1.

His best result was a sixth place with Toro Rosso in 2017.

Arriving in the Principality in the wake of his first back-to-back points-hauls for McLaren, he’s hoping to add a third come Sunday.

“My focus this weekend is on consistency and finding the limit with patience and confidence in the car,” he said.

“I’ve always been in Q3 and scored points here in the past, so the target is to keep that record going for this year and improve as much as possible.”

“Monaco is such a special race on the F1 calendar. The history, the track and the atmosphere the whole week makes it something absolutely unique.

“Obviously, it can be very tricky to overtake here, so setting the car up on Thursday and Saturday morning is more crucial here than anywhere else for a strong result in quali and hopefully the race.”

As for his team-mate Lando Norris, the rookie highlighted the importance of qualifying well around the streets of Monte Carlo.

He said: “This track requires all your concentration and there’s never really a break anywhere around the lap.

“There’s a lot of focus on getting it right on Saturday – it can really make or break your weekend as there aren’t many overtaking opportunities there come Sunday.

“My target is to put in a good performance in qualy and place ourselves in a position to take advantage of any mid-race drama. The key to scoring points here is to ensure we have a clean race.”

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