Carlos Sainz Jr: Red Bull can count on me for senior F1 team

The Spaniard latest impressive performance in last weekend's Monaco Grand Prix weekend, as he absorbed intense pressure from Lewis Hamilton to finish sixth.

Sainz's chances of promotion to the senior team, having raced for Toro Rosso since the start of 2015, are hampered by the fact Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull contracts run up until 2018.

Despite that, Sainz said: "I will keep doing what I'm doing and we'll see what happens.

"I need to keep performing for myself and to show Red Bull and everyone there that I am a fast guy and that one day they can count on me.

"Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later."

He has scored points five times out of six this season to give him a tally of 25, compared to his team-mate Daniil Kvyat's four.

When asked what more he can do, Sainz said: "No more.

"I don't think more than P6 or P7 is realistic with three top teams being a second quicker than us on a track like Monaco and two seconds in other tracks.

"At the moment our win is to finish the races P7, in Monaco we finished P6 as we beat a Mercedes, so we're happy."

Sainz said Monaco was the "perfect weekend" as he managed to get the maximum out of the car.

"It was the race we needed," he said.

"It's not like every year you do the perfect weekend in the best race of the season - Monaco.

"I've been happy since FP1, building it little by little, picking up in qualifying and doing a very good lap, then in the race there were no mistakes and I was clearly ahead of the midfield, controlling the gap to Hamilton.

"Managing our pace this weekend has been really good.

"Monaco is one of those circuits where you really want to shine a bit more.

"We have done that this weekend."