McLaren F1 Team had a difficult race weekend at Spa-Francorchamps for the Belgium Grand Prix as both Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo finished outside of the points, which keeps them fifth in the constructors behind a more consistent BWT Alpine F1 Team.
Norris started the race in seventeenth place due to taking a grid penalty alongside six other drivers and would have a tough day ahead if he was going to make it inside the top 10 at the end of the forty-four-lap race.
Both Norris and Ricciardo got away cleanly, picking up positions on the opening lap. However, there was a safety car deployed on lap two as Valtteri Bottas was in the gravel trap, and Lewis Hamilton had stopped at turn sixteen after a coming together with Fernando Alonso. This moved Ricciardo up to sixth and Norris up to twelfth.
Norris pitted on lap thirteen and changed to the hard compound tyre, emerging in seventeenth place. He was able to get up to thirteenth two places behind his team-mate due to other cars making pit stops. Norris then pitted again on lap twenty-nine for fresh mediums after being overtaken by both the Alpines.
Both McLaren’s were unable to make it back into point-scoring positions for the remainder of the race leaving Norris in twelfth place and Ricciardo in fifteenth.
Norris spoke after the race about the difficulty of overtaking and getting stuck in a DRS train which kept him out of the points. He felt that the car wasn’t quick enough this weekend but has confidence going into the Dutch Grand Prix next weekend that the team can put up a better fight against both Alpines.
“It was a difficult race but pretty much as I expected really. It wasn’t easy to overtake, and I just got stuck in the DRS trains. Not a lot to do but I think we did a good job. The little changes we made to the car for this weekend made a bit of a difference so there’s still some positives to take from it all.”
“We tried but we just weren’t quick enough this time around. We’ll keep working hard, keep pushing, take a look at everything in the next few days and try and take the fight back to the Alpines in Zandvoort.”
Daniel Ricciardo: “I think it was visible to see our struggles today“
Credit: McLaren Media Centre
Daniel Ricciardo’s race started more optimistically than his team-mate as he lined up on the grid in seventh place with the target of scoring points. Ricciardo benefited from the safety car moving him up to sixth place on lap two.
From then on Ricciardo started to struggle as he was passed by Max Verstappen on soft tyres before Alex Albon moved ahead of the Australian. The honey badger pitted for hard tyres on lap thirteen and therefore dropped him down to fifteenth as he re-entered the track.
Later on in the race, Both Scuderia AlphaTauri cars opted to pit which moved Ricciardo up to tenth after the halfway point. However, after both Alpines had overtaken Norris and Ricciardo, both drivers opted for a second stop with Ricciardo pitting on lap 32 for a fresh set of medium tyres.
For the remaining laps of the race, Ricciardo was unable to get back into the points and finished the Belgium Grand Prix in fifteenth place.
Ricciardo spoke afterwards about the personal struggles of the race especially after having to use an already used rear wing from the day before. He admitted that both he and his team-mate were just not quick enough compared to other cars and is hoping for a more positive outcome next weekend at Zandvoort.
“I think it was visible to see our struggles today. Not to be pessimistic but I knew coming into the race that we would probably find it hard through the first and third sector with the rear wing that we were forced to use from yesterday.”
“Obviously, I hoped that I’d have enough speed in the second sector to try and make something happen – but we just couldn’t overtake with the speed we had.”
“I know I wasn’t the only one who struggled overtaking today, it looked like some cars were just so much quicker than others on the straight and that was it. In clear air, we certainly had a bit more speed but we just lost so much time being stuck behind cars and couldn’t really make anything happen.”
“I think there was a lot of opportunities with the mixed grid but I appreciate Lando’s race didn’t seem that much better so maybe we just didn’t have the package. We’ve got a week to come back for Zandvoort. We’ll see how we go there, and hopefully it’s a good weekend.”