A strong contender for third place in the Constructors’ Championship before the Mexican Grand Prix, a number of incidents and bad luck have proven costly to both Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris.
Although Ricciardo showed good pace with his car, he got entangled in Mexico on the first lap with Valtteri Bottas, retired at the Brazilian GP due to a crack in the unit installation and finished the points in Qatar after a forced break. excessive fuel economy.
That means the only points from the three races were taken by Norris, who finished 10th in Mexico and Brazil but lost a top 5 to ninth in Qatar thanks to a late puncture.
Considering the difficult three weeks for McLaren, with the team falling 39.5 points behind Ferrari in two remaining races, Seidl said the points scored did not reflect the true potential of the team package.
“I think we have to accept to a certain extent that it was tough for the entire team to get four points in three races is of course painful,” said Seidl.
“But if we look at what happened and how we lost a lot of points, things are out of control or it was bad luck. And that’s part of our sport.
“I think the good thing is that we saw the gap [in Qatar] and we had a competitive car, two drivers who were competitive on the track, and the team did a good job at the pit stops. So we just have to go back to Saudi Arabia and fight back. “
While Seidl says the team tried to get To explain why Ricciardo had saved so much fuel, Norris would have taken home a decent score if the unexpected puncture hadn’t come too late.
Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren MCL35M, Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB16B
Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images
“From my point of view, I think he would have been P4 or P5 based on his performance,” he said.
“It is of course a shame that we had this puncture, because after two unlucky weekends for us in Brazil and Mexico it would have been good to achieve a good result regardless of our fight for the constructors’ championship.”
McLaren had no immediate explanation for the cause of Norris’ puncture, but the team is confident that a strong year-end for 2022 will be encouraging, even if Ferrari is not overtaken in the last two races.
“Unfortunately we missed our chance with the puncture, so the triple header didn’t really go in our direction,” added Seidl.
“Sometimes that’s the case in sports. For us it is now important that we keep fighting in the last two races, because as long as it is theoretically possible, we will give everything for the constructors’ championship.
“But regardless of that, we just want to finish well and achieve good results again during the winter break.”
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