Bahrain was a nervy but positive debut and Imola represented the first time the Japanese driver had raced in F1 in changeable conditions. He was hardly the only one to slip up but with more track time under his belt, he could be mighty sooner rather than later.
Over at Ferrari, Sainz hasn’t quite got his feet totally under the table at Maranello yet either, but the Spaniard has shown impressive glimpses of pace against team-mate Charles Leclerc that he could be on par with the Monégasque.
In Bahrain, he might have been mugged at the start but Sainz actually put together a great debut for the Prancing Horse. His race pace was on par with Leclerc and he finished just 1.1sec down on Daniel Ricciardo and 8sec on his team-mate. Not too bad.
The wet race at Imola made things more tricky for both the drivers and us to read into, but after ironing out the off-track excursions in those early laps, he put in a solid second phase of the race and once again finished just a handful of seconds down on Leclerc.
A weekend free of errors and with another weekend to embed himself within the team a little more, Portimao might be the point in which we see his McLaren form emerge.
Track limits
Turn One will be a track limits hot spot this weekend
Grand Prix Photo
A word of warning, you might be hearing a bit more about track limits this weekend. Last year as drivers pushed the limits of what was allowed, 194 laps were deleted for infringements in total throughout the race weekend.
What constitutes out-of-bounds and what is allowed has been a point of contention from the first round this season and with the layout of Portimao and Turn One in particular, a repeat is likely this weekend.
What is allowed on Friday will likely be tightened up by Saturday qualifying so drivers will need to stay inside the white lines for laps to count.
It hurt Lando Norris last time out at Imola as he lost his qualifying lap that would have been good enough to start third on the grid.
Then of course there was Verstappen’s pass on Hamilton in Bahrain that was outside of track limits that ended up deciding the race in Sakhir. There is only really one line into Turn One and with DRS assistance when push comes to shove, there can only be one winner there.