McLaren the only team whose upgrades work every time

Carlos Sainz Jnr says his former team McLaren have out-developed their rivals because the updates they’ve brought for their car always work.

Ferrari won races earlier in the year but Sainz and team mate Charles Leclerc fell out of contention after they experienced problems which were blamed on a floor upgrade.

Sainz said McLaren, who scored an emphatic victory at Zandvoort last weekend, “is clearly the team to beat” at the moment.

“They’ve proven the last few races they have the fastest car on-track and the rest of us, we are trying to put all these upgrades that sometimes work, sometimes don’t. The only ones that seem to be knowing exactly how to put an upgrade and make it work is McLaren right now.

“The other ones, we’re trying to find our way. We’re going to try and do that this weekend and hopefully that can give us a bit of extra performance.”

Ferrari qualified poorly last weekend but their cars were much more competitive in race trim. The team has brought further new parts for its home race this weekend but Sainz is cautious about their prospects.

“I think we need to wait to see the new track, the new Tarmac, the upgrades,” he told Sky. “See where we are on Friday and then decide whether we are going to fight for pole position or the win, or we are going to be fighting for podium or top five or top eight. Only time will tell.”

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Max Verstappen saw his championship lead cut to 70 points by McLaren’s Lando Norris last weekend. “They’re strong, there is no denying that, but we have to focus on ourselves,” said the Red Bull driver.

Red Bull arrive at Monza also seeking to solve problems which developed on their car in recent races.

“At the moment it’s just important that we focus on ourselves and try to correct a few balance issues that we have and that’s what we’ll try to do this weekend,” Verstappen told the official F1 channel. “But it’s a bit difficult at the moment to say things are different or fixed, we need the weekend to solve that.

“We have a few ideas, which we’ll try. The track is also new with the Tarmac and kerbs and stuff so we have to find out how the car responds to that. And, yeah, I guess we’ll see throughout the weekend how we will go.”

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