Can Sainz really do what Alonso couldn't?

Adios Red Bull. Hola McLaren. After 10 years in the energy drink company's young driver programme, Carlos Sainz Jr has been set free to take the next step in his career.

The boy from Madrid has arrived at the McLaren Technology Centre to build a new life and move into a new home. Welcome to Woking.

After a season-and-a-bit on loan at Renault, this latest move offers Sainz the prospect of stability. During his time on the Red Bull books he was jostled and leapfrogged by Daniil Kvyat and Max Verstappen on the path to a works team seat he never got to fill; at McLaren he has a two-year contract that should give him time to develop.

Although he is only 24, Sainz is embarking on his fifth season in F1, and this will be his first as de facto team leader, since the garage next door is occupied by rookie Lando Norris.

Fittingly, Sainz will also occupy the race seat vacated by his hero and countryman, Fernando Alonso. You can understand, then, why he is all smiles as he strolls confidently around the majestic steel-and-glass MTC on this bright winter morning.

"Impressive," says Sainz. "That was my impression when I came into the McLaren Technology Centre for the first time. It's a facility that would impress pretty much any human being. And it's been great to see such a good vibe inside the team; there is a buzz here, a real sense of excitement."

For much of this decade, McLaren's form has been patchy and, as the switch to Renault power proved last year, the reasons for that are manifold and not confined to the engine bay. It's clear now that certain work practices and disciplines caused inefficiencies to take root - and three seasons of laying the blame for underperformance at Honda's door meant those problems went unaddressed.

Poor relationship with Honda aside, what came out of Woking was a series of cars that carried too much drag for the given level of downforce and were difficult to develop.

Alonso worked miracles out on the race track, but in doing so he eroded the self-confidence of his team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne, before finding himself distracted by goals beyond F1, such as Le Mans and the Indy 500.

McLaren's CEO Zak Brown had to make structural changes to the organisation, and following the departure of Eric Boullier (a Ron Dennis hire), Zak has appointed Gil de Ferran as sporting director, former Toro Rosso man James Key as technical director, and former Porsche LMP1 boss Andreas Seidl as managing director tasked with leading the racing team.

These moves are the first steps in taking McLaren back to their rightful place at the sharp end of the grid.

"After such a tough year for the team, it was important for me to see everyone working hard, not having lost any kind of motivation," says Sainz.

"There is a lot of excitement about the project and with Zak's strategy to make some changes and sign new people, the plan is to make McLaren great again."

Key will only be released from his Toro Rosso contract at the end of March and is expected to begin his new role too late to have any abiding influence on the MCL34, but he will be instrumental in the development of the 2020 machine. Having previously worked with Key at Toro Rosso, Sainz hopes that the favourable aspects of cars he drove there will be developed into McLarens of the future.

Sainz's appointment as Alonso's heir was the result of a flurry of driver switches that took place last summer. Dan Ricciardo's move to Renault left Sainz out of a drive there, while Red Bull refused their option to draft him in alongside Max Verstappen for 2019 as a direct replacement for Ricciardo. Given the rather fractious relationship between Sainz and Verstappen when they were team-mates at Toro Rosso, Red Bull took on Pierre Gasly instead.

Freed from the whims of Dr Helmut Marko, Sainz signed a two-year deal with McLaren (with an option for a third) and is now enjoying a new degree of control over his affairs.

This is the first deal he's had in racing where he hasn't had to worry about where he'll be driving the following season, and he can keep his management within the family. Quite literally, since his cousin, also called Carlos, manages his affairs.

"I knew from the moment I left Toro Rosso two years ago to go to Renault [replacing Jolyon Palmer after the 2017 Japanese Grand Prix] that I was reducing my chances of going to Red Bull one day," says Sainz.

"But I felt that it was a necessary step for my career to do my fourth year with Renault, a manufacturer team, and that experience has helped me move to McLaren in a much more confident way. It's impossible not to be grateful to Red Bull for everything they have done with my career, but this is a new chapter in my life."

McLaren will be Sainz's third team in three years, but this time he won't be up against such an established team-mate. Nico Hulkenberg might not have a podium to his name, but he is no slouch and was a formidable opponent last season. But once Sainz had settled in at Renault he impressed, losing out just 13-8 in qualifying in 2018 and amassing a decent haul of points.

"I wouldn't say last year was a bad season at all," says Sainz. "Maybe in the first five races I paid the price for the extra year of experience that Nico had in the team.

"But as soon as I got to grips with the car - from Barcelona on - I was as fast as him, and sometimes even faster.

"I was particularly happy with the second half of the season. After the summer break I started to be a bit more aggressive, because I knew my future with McLaren had been decided. I was driving with more freedom and I think that's a natural thing for anyone. It's important for a driver to feel at home with a team and have stability.

"Before the summer break, nothing was stable, but once I'd signed my deal with McLaren I decided that I was going to commit full-time to Renault from August through to November. I wanted to finish on a high and show them what they were going to miss."

Unless McLaren have made great strides during the off-season, in the short term at least Sainz should expect to be further down the grid than he's accustomed to. But the margins between the midfield teams are narrower than the gulf between them and the top three, and some experience in the McLaren at the post-season Abu Dhabi test gave Sainz cause for optimism.

In any case, in the long term, the ambition for McLaren has to be to get among the leading group once again rather than benchmarking themselves against midfielders.

"It was clear as soon as I'd tested the car," says Sainz. "You can't forget that when it's said the McLaren wasn't as strong as the Renault last year, we are only talking 0.3s or 0.4s - not the one or two seconds to the leaders. The gap between McLaren and Renault is much smaller than the gap we need to cut to the frontrunners.

"In Abu Dhabi there are 21 corners. If you tell me where the 0.3s exists and then divide that into 21 - then we might only be talking about 0.014s per corner. So, the differences are not huge, it's not like going from a different category of racing car. There are small details, but you wouldn't expect to jump from one car to another which is 0.3s different and find a completely diverse performance."

It was the relative pace to the leaders that finally frustrated Alonso. He decided not to continue with McLaren in favour of pursuing other high-profile racing events. Sainz grew up idolising Alonso and befriended his hero once he arrived in Formula 1. But, according to Carlos, he didn't seek Fernando's advice about the move to McLaren.

"To be honest, the conversations didn't start until the season had finished," says Sainz. "Not that I didn't care, but I was so focused on my Renault campaign that I didn't really care too much about anything else. But as soon as Abu Dhabi finished, I switched 100%. After the test and visits to the factory, I had something to talk about with Fernando because until I'd tried the car we couldn't talk about anything.

"I finally did the test and then we could share opinions. Don't forget I've been fighting against McLaren over the past four years, often against Fernando, so it was quite interesting to open up with him and share our impressions together."

Just one floor below us, from our vantage point in the MTC, is McLaren's famed boulevard with its illustrious parade of title-winning cars.

Fluorescent red-and-white Marlboro-sponsored machines with their bulbous tyres from the 1980s sit alongside the more-streamlined silver machines of the late 1990s and 2000s. Like so many McLaren drivers before him, Sainz can't help but stop and stare at the roll-call of winners as he walks past.

"I cannot stop posting pictures on my Instagram or Twitter when I come to the factory and see the cars here," he sighs.

"It's just very special seeing some of the most incredible cars in the history of Formula 1 driven by the likes of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. When you walk between various areas of the factory, there must be another 30 or 40 cars that aren't on display - some of them under dust sheets.

"When I walk through the corridors it often takes too long because I just have to stop and stare at all the cars. It's the same when I go to the Automotive side and discover the attention to detail that goes into building the road cars. There are a lot of machines, but so much is done by hand."

Everyone has their favourite car on the MTC boulevard, usually coinciding with the era in which they fell in love with Formula 1. For Carlos, perhaps surprisingly, his favourite is the MP4-22 from Alonso's first foray to Woking in 2007 - when Sainz Jr was just 13 years old.

"I really like the 2007 car, although it wasn't the best year for McLaren internally [he's referring to the 'Spygate' furore]. I think it's one of the most beautiful cars in Formula 1. But if you ask me which is the best in McLaren's history - you might be surprised by my answer.

"It's the 2012 car. The reason for that is that this team was winning that year with that car and it's only six years ago. That's why I'm optimistic that in just six years this team can't have forgotten how to build a racing car that can win in Formula 1.

"It's true that in the hybrid era Mercedes and Ferrari have set a new bar in terms of where you need to be to be successful in F1, with how much you need to spend and what resource you need. But I know this team has been able to beat both of those teams six years ago. Not many teams on the grid right now can say that.

"So when people are surprised at my move and say 'Why are you happy to go to McLaren?' I remind them of 2012 and then they understand. I'm proud to be here and we have a long-term plan to be successful. We need to work hard and deliver."

There are more smiles as Carlos stands up, straps on his Richard Mille watch and heads downstairs for another series of meetings with his team, including one with race engineer Tom Stallard. The day after we meet, Sainz is active on Instagram, having visited John Lewis to buy high-tog duvets for his new Weybridge home - all part of making a new life for himself in Surrey as he bids to spearhead McLaren's Formula 1 revival.

He hasn't been given a road-going supercar to commute with yet, but one has been ordered. Spectators will watch his first season at McLaren with interest - and none more so than Fernando Alonso...