Sainz: Renault pain in Mexico will help long term

Carlos Sainz Jr is confident Renault’s disastrous Mexican Grand Prix plagued by engine failures will be a positive learning experience for the future and has been reassured the problem will not resurface at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Sainz and team-mate Nico Hulkenberg were forced to retire from the Mexican race due to problems with the Renault power unit’s turbo and cooling system – an issue which also hit every Renault-powered car on the grid at Red Bull and Toro Rosso.

The Spanish driver concedes it was a painful way to end a promising race weekend and despite losing vital ground on its target of fifth place in this year’s Formula 1 world constructors’ championship he is hopeful the problem is short term with long term rewards.

“I don’t know if it huge risk but the team is developing and trying new things. Mexico was not a good weekend in terms of reliability – we were a bit surprised with the high altitude and how the cooling worked inside the engine but I am sure the team has learned from that,” Sainz said. “There are some races in a year you need to go through, very special races like Mexico, where you learn and make sure that in an important year like 2018 that we are prepared.

“I expect to be back in full form here. Mexico is a special race for the power units and the cars whereas Brazil is a more normal one and I expect the team to be back in full form like we were in Austin.

“In terms of pace in Mexico we were very good so I see positive trends from these two races it is just the unreliability which makes it not as good as we liked. “We have clear targets for the last two races in the championship and we have options still to finish fifth but our main priority here is sixth place so we need reliability for that.”

Renault currently sits seventh in the F1 world constructors’ championship, just one point ahead of Haas, and 28 points off of Williams in fifth place while Toro Rosso are five points in front of the French manufacturer in sixth place.