Recently, Carlos Sainz's former race engineer shared an interesting observation. Tom Stallard—who currently works with Oscar Piastri—believes that the Spanish work may be responsible for the McLaren team's competitiveness; without him, they wouldn't be here.
At the same time, Stallard said that Sainz also benefited a lot from these times and was thus able to join Scuderia Ferrari:
"He's a brilliant driver who clearly helped make McLaren competitive. Although Renault didn't consider him a real asset, he showed his potential with us; we had a huge need for his services. He contributed a lot to our project; we wouldn't be here today if he hadn't been with us during that time. We helped him restore his self-esteem, and thanks to that, he's now considered one of the best drivers.
Now he's exerting the same positive influence at Ferrari that he had with us; he's played a huge role in putting the Reds in contention for the Constructors' World Championship." - came an unexpected but high praise from the opponent.
