Sainz eager to get behind the wheel for Renault

Austin (Texas), Oct 20 (IANS) Formula One driver Carlos Sainz said that he's happy Austin's Circuit of the Americas is the venue for his first race with new team Renault.

Originally set to join Renault in 2018, the Spaniard made the move with four races left in the 2017 season after Toro Rosso agreed to release him early, reports Efe.

"I'm actually particularly excited to make the debut with the Renault car in a circuit like Austin because you have every single kind of corner that you enjoy in Formula One in this kind of track," Sainz said at a press conference ahead of this weekend's United States Grand Prix in the Texas capital.

Asked about the reasons for joining Renault earlier than planned, the driver said that being part of the team for the final four races of 2017 gives him the chance to influence the design of next year's cars.

"On top of that, it's always better to meet engineers, PR people, team bosses, start working along together with all of them four races earlier. That gives us a bit of an advantage for 2018 rather than going straight into winter testing in 2018," Sainz said.

The Spaniard replaced Jolyon Palmer as Nico H?lkenberg's teammate at Renault.

As whether he will be able to keep up with H?lkenberg in qualifying this weekend, Sainz said he preferred to "wait and see."

"I think my main target has to be to go session by session. I'm the first one who wants to be on the pace straight away, but I cannot get too excited about that," he said.

"I need to adapt myself to the car and I need to adapt the car to myself at the same time. That takes a bit of time and I'm going to go step by step and hopefully get there as soon as possible," Sainz said.