Carlos Sainz Jr admits it was a “relief” to finallyꦗ open up his account for McLaren with his first points of the 2019 Formula 1 season at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Following back-to-back retirements in Australia and Bahrain, and a first-lap collision in China, the Spaniard finally got off the mark for McLare🌞n at the fourth round of the season by converting a top ten starting p𒁏osition into an seventh-place finish in Baku.

“On a personal level this one is a bit of a re🎃lief,” Sainz said.

“After three races where I had the pace I had today, but just for a reason I still don’t understand three consecutive runs of bad luck happened to us. Today we didn’t have any issues and we just demonstrated wha🤪t we are capable of doing.

“We had great pace all weekend really. It was a shame that I couldn’t𓆉 use it yesterday in qualifying because of yellow flags, but today within eight laps I was back to where I wanted to be which was attacking the Force India in front.

“Since then we showed really good pace, we were managing the tyres to the end behind Lando [Norris] and [Sergio] Perez. That [Virtual] Safety Car gave Perez an extra half a second, second of lap time and we couldn’t pass him, but in general very happꦗy.”

Lando Norris dropped behind teammate Sain🥀z to eighth after making a pitstop in an attempt to put pressure on Perez ahead during a late Virtual Safety Car period. While the gamble did not pay off, Norris says he was left with no regrets.

“I’m happy,” he insisted. “As a 🐈team we didn’t win or lose points from where we were before the stop.

“We just wanted something to see if we could have a bigger advantage over Checo to get ahead as we didn’t have the straight line speed to pass him. It wasn’t a win or a loss in the end, just swapped positions basically. I’m happy with seventh and eighth, good points for the team.”

Asked who made the call, Norris said: “It was both. I bo💯xed to overtake so if he boxed I wouldn’t have boxed, and vice versa.

“I could have easily said no I don’t think you♏’re right, or stay out, but just a chance to do something different, just something we tried, I believed in their decision.

“I agreed with it and boxed, so I’m fine with the decision.꧃ It was a team decision. It just didn’t work out how I wanted to.”