McLaren’s Andreas Seidl: “A challenging Sunday afternoon for us”

Andreas Seidl admits the first two races of the double-header in Mexico City and São Paulo have not gone the way the McLaren F1 Team would have hoped, with Lando Norris scoring the teams’ only point of a challenging weekend at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace.

McLaren have slipped thirty-one-and-a-half points behind Scuderia Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship as a result of scoring only two points in two race weekends, although the performance by the team in Brazil was much stronger than the results appear.

Norris was attacking Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr. at the start but made contact with his former team-mate and suffered a puncture, meaning he was always playing catch up for the rest of the afternoon.  He was able to capitalise on the safety car to catch the back of the pack, and he used his good pace to climb up the order to take tenth.

Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was on course for a better result, perhaps as high as sixth or seventh, only to suffer a loss of power, which was caused by a cracked chassis. 

And with Charles Leclerc and Sainz finishing fifth and sixth, it puts McLaren on the back foot in the battle for third place in the Championship with just three races remaining, with Seidl hoping for a fightback starting this weekend in Qatar.

“A challenging Sunday afternoon for us with again just one point for a lot of effort” said Seidl, the Team Principal at McLaren.  “Unfortunately, after a good initial launch, Lando came together with Carlos [Sainz] which cost him a puncture and put him at the back with significant damage to the floor area resulting in a loss of performance.

“We kept fighting, Lando made his way through the field and did well to score a point, but it’s obviously disappointing given where we started. On Daniel’s side, he made up ground at the start and his race was going well until he was forced to retire, having suffered a power loss.

“The triple header has not gone well for us so far, but we’re hoping to have a better run in just seven days’ time. Irrespective of the result, everyone worked very hard this weekend, particularly given the intensity caused by the late arrival of our freight, and we had a competitive car.

“My thanks to everyone at the track, back at the factory and our colleagues at Mercedes HPP for their effort. We’ll continue to work hard, and look forward to going again with some exciting, new races starting with Qatar next week.”