Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz is looking for a big improvement in Renault’s next engine upgrade after struggling to keep pace with Pascal Wehrlien.
Sainz became stuck behind Wehrlein in the latter part of the race. The German, in a Sauber powered by year-old Ferrari engines, was faster than Sainz on the straights.
“We need a bit more power,” Sainz told Autosport. “You can see yesterday we were two tenths to P7, so imagine if Renault brings three tenths – suddenly everything changes.
“We need that step and it’ll take probably another three races, so we need to be patient. We need to keep extracting what we have.
“In qualifying, we are not where we want to be, but in the race it is better and better.
“It’s been four consecutive races now where we try to fight back from a position in qualifying and I hope we don’t do this all year.”
Sainz was unable to find a way past Wehrlein on track. He was promoted to seventh after Wehrlein received a time penalty. The Spaniard called the speed deficit to Sauber a “desperate situation”, but congratulated Wehrlein on his defending.
“For the first time we were fighting the Sauber and it’s a bit of a desperate situation to have a Ferrari 2016 engine faster than us on the straights, compared to our car at the moment.
“I tried my best to pass him I was getting just enough to be side by side at turn 1, but he was covering the inside line of turn 1.
“It’s tough to pass here but he was doing a good job to cover the inside line where he could – so good on him.”
Reliability problems have postponed the introduction of Renault’s power unit upgrade. It now won’t come until the British GP at the earliest. The manufacturer hopes the major update, which should include the 2017 specification MGU-K, will close the gap to Ferrari and Mercedes.
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