McLaren’s Carlos Sainz has said that Haas are a cut above in the midfield battle, predicting their pace advantage to be “half a second” in qualifying.
In the season opener at the Australian Grand Prix, Haas were best of the rest in both qualifying and the race itself while both McLaren cars finished outside the points.
And, based on what he has seen on the timesheets, Sainz thinks it is going to take an almighty effort this season to be able to out-pace the American outfit in qualifying trim.
“Haas, they are a bit too far ahead in the midfield for everyone else,” Sainz said in Bahrain.
“That is the only bad thing compared to last year, that the Haas is a bit too far away compared to last year.
“It is more than half a second, to close a gap of half a second even in a high development rate this season it would be a very difficult task.
“They won’t standstill so you need to develop at least seven or eight tenths which is a lot of lap time. My big estimate is it is going to be very difficult to end the year in front of Haas in qualifying.
“I wouldn’t say in a race but in pure pace it is going to be very difficult for anyone.
“I don’t look at numbers as much as the engineers, I just do my guesses looking at lap times and how good their lap times were compared to mine or my team-mate’s.
“I did a rough calculation, this is not an exact number. Half a second is a lot but we will try.”
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