Recently, Carlos Sainz's former race engineer shared an interesting observation. Tom Stallard—who currently works with Oscar Piastri—claims that the Spaniard's work could be the reason the McLaren team is competitive; without him, they wouldn't be here.
However, according to Stallard, Sainz has also made the most of those times, and was able to join Scuderia Ferrari:
“He's a brilliant driver who clearly helped make McLaren competitive. Although Renault didn't consider him a true asset, here he showed his enormous potential, and we really needed his services. He contributed enormously to our project; we wouldn't be here if he hadn't been with us at that time. And we helped restore his self-esteem, which is why today he's considered one of the absolute best drivers.”
Now he's having the same positive effect on Ferrari that he had on us; he's playing a huge role in keeping the Reds in the fight for the constructors' championship." - came unexpected but enormous praise from the rival.
