---
title: "Sainz ‘not yet comfortable’ with 2018 car"
canonical: "https://readmotorsport.com/2018/05/10/sainz-not-yet-comfortable-with-2018-car/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
author: "Kyran Gibbons"
section: "F1 News"
published: "2018-05-10T16:07:34Z"
modified: "2018-05-10T16:08:57Z"
---

# Sainz ‘not yet comfortable’ with 2018 car

Renault’s Carlos Sainz Jr has confirmed that he is ‘definitely not comfortable’ with his Formula 1 car in 2018.

After being loaned out of Toro Rosso by Red Bull to facilitate a move to Renault for the final four races of 2017, this season marks Sainz’s first full year with the team.

Sainz currently sits 10th in the drivers’ standings on 13 points, with 10 scored at the last race in Azerbaijan with a fifth-place finish. Team-mate Nico Hulkenberg has scored 22 points this season and has also outqualified Sainz in each of the four rounds held so far.

Having previously complained about the balance of his Renault, Sainz said that he is “definitely not yet” comfortable with the car.

“I’m not 100 percent confident yet. There are still things to test, adapt to and things to \[do in order to\] make the car well suited to me and it’s something that I’m taking a lot of care of, a lot of time and a lot of effort at Enstone and it is coming along little by little. Sooner or later there will be 100 percent.”

Sainz has been an average of 0.258 seconds adrift of Hulkenberg in qualifying so far in 2018. The biggest margin between the pair was 0.416s in Bahrain. Sainz has still reached Q3 in all four qualifying sessions.

“In the end if I don’t have full confidence in the car and I don’t have the car well suited to me, then in qualifying there will always be tenths around,” he said regarding the gap to Hulkenberg in qualifying.

“As soon as I get a balance that I like and the car is better suited to me then the lap time will come so I am not worried.”

![](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2018/04/951949642.jpg)

In Azerbaijan, Sainz’s result was aided by incidents ahead with the Red Bull pair of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen retiring following their collision and Valtteri Bottas’s late puncture eliminating him from the race.

Following a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change prior to qualifying, Hulkenberg was running behind Sainz in the opening stages. He hit the wall on lap 10 of 51, resulting in retirement and his first failure to score of the season.

Sainz described his result in Azerbaijan as a “big boost. It has been a good start to the season but that result in Baku has made it a lot better.

“The fifth place is helped by the accident for the Red Bull’s but we just need to make sure we keep going faster still.”