When Niki Lauda arrived from BRM at Maranello in 1974 he declared that with the resources and facilities at Ferrari the Italian team should win every grand prix they entered, now over four decades later Carlos Sainz walked into Woking and asked: why McLaren are not a winning force.
Like Lauda, Sainz will arrive at a mighty organisation which has fallen on lousy times, if he can achieve a fraction of what Lauda did with Ferrari he will have achieved a great deal.
The great Austrian, now Mercedes F1 chairman, went on to win the Formula 1 World Championship twice (1975 and 1977) while racking up 15 grand prix victories in the process.
Speaking on Beyond The Grid podcast, Sainz recalled his visit to McLaren's headquarters, “It's unbelievable. The first time I went there and saw it, the first thing that came to my mind was: How can these guys not be winning? That's why I'm a strong believer that McLaren, in the future, is going to make it back.”
Carlos: Dad, I want to be like Fernando Alonso one day
Sainz, snubbed by long-time backers Red Bull, will now lead rookie Lando Norris in the orange cars next season and, like Lauda years ago, the 24-year-old Spaniard arrives at a team on its knees, winless since 2012 and stepping into the shoes of his hero Fernando Alonso.
During the podcast, Sainz junior also explained how he just might have had the racing gene in his DNA, in other words born with it rather than acquired.
He recalled, “Apparently, when I was two years old, my Dad was rallying all the time and when he came back from rallying, he saw me on a little battery car, doing a lot of Scandinavian flicks entering the corners and doing a lot of donuts, and he was asking: Who the hell has taught this guy to do that? – and no-one had taught me! But I had it in my blood and eventually I ended up being a racing driver.”
In an episode straight out of Batman and Robin, Sainz leaves Renault at the end of this season to replace the legend that led him to follow the tarmac route to Formula 1, rather than take the dirt path of his great rally legend father and namesake Carlos Sainz senior.
“When I turned nine, 10 years old, there was this Spaniard called Fernando Alonso starting to win races in Formula 1. I met him in 2005 at the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona, and when I met him, I went back home and I told my Dad: Dad, I want to be like Fernando Alonso one day," explained Sainz junior.
Big Question: How can McLaren not be winning?
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