McLaren’s Andreas Seidl: “Mixed feelings today in Monza”

Despite being able to claw back the deficit between themselves and BWT Alpine F1 Team for fourth in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship Constructors’ Standings at the Italian Grand Prix, Team Principal of the McLaren F1 Team Andreas Seidl, has admitted he leaves Monza with ‘mixed feelings’ as a double points finish was cruelly taken away from the team late on.

Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris started from the second row of the grid as a number of grid penalties ahead had seen both McLaren drivers pushed towards the front end of the starting grid. Anti-stall at the race-start saw Norris tumble down the order, while Ricciardo was able to move into the podium places on the opening lap.

Ricciardo’s time running in the podium places would be short-lived, as Max Verstappen was able to past his former team-mate on the second lap into Turn One.

McLaren opted for a one-stop strategy for both drivers around the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, with Norris undertaking an aggressive Medium-Soft strategy while Ricciardo opted for a shorter opening stint on the Medium tyres, before attempting to finish the race on a set of Hard compound tyres.

Ricciardo was running inside the points in eighth-place before an oil leak on lap forty-five would bring an untimely end to the Australian’s race. Norris, who was running in sixth when Ricciardo pulled to the side of the track, elected to pit for another set of Soft tyres during the Safety Car that ensued from Ricciardo’s MCL36 being parked on the side of the track.

During his late pit-stop, Norris was jumped for sixth-place by Sergio Pérez as the Mexican driver elected to not pit. With the race ending under the Safety Car, Norris never had the chance to utilise a fresher set of Soft tyres for the final laps and came home for a seventh-place finish.

With Alpine failing to score any points, McLaren were able to reduce the sizeable deficit between the two constructors’ by six points. While Seidl was left delighted with Norris’ points finish, he took the time to comment on how valuable Ricciardo’s points would have been if it wasn’t for the late oil leak inside his MCL36.

“Mixed feelings today in Monza. The positive side is that the pace we had this weekend and throughout the race was very encouraging, particularly given warm weather and a low-downforce configuration haven’t favoured us in the past. On the other hand, a retirement for Daniel is disappointing, costing us valuable points in the Constructors’ Championship after he had a very strong weekend, both yesterday in qualifying and also today in the race. P7 for Lando, however, confirms us as the fourth-fastest team this weekend.”

In both Spa-Francorchamps and Zandvoort, McLaren failed to reach the levels being set by Alpine and looked to be losing the battle for fourth in the constructors’, but after finally enjoying a stronger weekend over their rivals, Seidl is looking for his team to further reduce the gap between themselves and Alpine next time out in Singapore.

“That comes from hard work from the entire team, here and back at home, together with our colleagues at Mercedes HPP. A break now of two weekends before we head to Singapore. While work on next year’s car continues at pace, in parallel we’ll use this time to analyse all the data we’ve collected over the triple-header and see how we can take further steps with the car as we head into the final six races of the season. We go again.”

Credit: Zak Mauger