It was a very disappointing performance that the McLarens delivered this Sunday at Spa.
Lando Norris certainly expected to have a difficult race starting from afar, but how to explain that he finished 12th, while Ocon, also penalized, finished in the top 7?
Norris doesn’t hide it, the McLaren was suffering today.
“It was a difficult race, but about as I expected. It wasn’t easy to overtake, and I got stuck in the DRS trains. There wasn’t much to do, but I think we did a good job. The small changes we made to the car for this weekend made a small difference, so there are still positives to take from all of that. We tried but we weren’t fast enough this time. »
“We will keep working hard, pushing, looking at everything in the next few days and trying to get back into the fight in Zandvoort. »
Starting 7th, Daniel Ricciardo could hope for good points, but on the contrary it was a dismal 15th place that he collected. McLaren’s strategy certainly did not help the Australian, however the situation remains painful for him…
“It was easy to see that we were in trouble today. I don’t want to be pessimistic, but I knew coming into the race that we would probably struggle in the first and third sectors with the rear wing that we had to use yesterday. Obviously I was hoping to have enough speed in the second sector to try and do something – but we just couldn’t pass with the speed we had. »
“I know I wasn’t the only one having trouble overtaking today, it seemed like some cars were just a lot faster than others on the straight and that was it. Looked clean, we definitely had a bit more speed, but we wasted so much time being stuck behind the cars… we couldn’t really do anything. I think there were a lot of opportunities with this mixed grid, but I see Lando’s race didn’t look any better so maybe we didn’t have the right package. »
“We have a week to return to Zandvoort. We’ll see how we do there, and hopefully it’s going to be a good weekend. »
McLaren suddenly lost 16 points to Alpine and saw 4th place slip away in the constructors’ standings.
Andreas Seidl, the director of the McLaren team in F1, is he worried about this second half of the season with Orange?
“It was a difficult Sunday for us here at Spa. The warmer conditions today contributed to a lack of pace which ultimately set us back during the race. It was not possible to get a better result. »
“I would like to thank the team on the circuit and at the factory, as well as our colleagues at Mercedes HPP. The result does not reflect the efforts made this weekend. A special mention also to our team in the pits who once again did a great job in our four pit stops. We will use the next few days to regroup and analyze our performance to see what we can learn which will help us come back stronger next weekend in Zandvoort. We are leaving in five days. »
