Lando Norris qualified for the front row at the Red Bull Ring and ran ahead of Lewis Hamilton at the start of the race.
After Hamilton was delayed by damage, Norris recaptured the reigning champion and finished third.
PLUS: How Norris and McLaren eventually competed against the top F1 teams “on merit”
But despite his strongest weekend in terms of overall pace, team boss Andreas Seidl is very cautious about the idea that he can aim for repetitive performance anywhere.
He pointed out that while the updates to the McLaren MCL35M improved the pace, the long straights and high-speed corners at the Red Bull Ring benefited the car’s characteristics.
“I think we have to be realistic, it was a track that suits our car,” said Seidl.
“It is good to see that, compared to last weekend, we have definitely made a leap in performance with the developments and fine-tuning, including in the setup, both in qualifying and in qualifying in the race.
“As a result, we were able to compete against some of the top cars today.
“But I don’t know exactly what problems Mercedes or Lewis had, for example, which gave us the chance to get a podium based on our own performance alone, which is great.”
Andreas Seidl celebrates with Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo after the Austrian GP in 2021
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Seidl said ahead of the race that McLaren’s greatest hope was realistically a fifth place as the team felt they didn’t have the speed to beat Mercedes and Red Bull with sheer power.
It is clear that Austria has flattered the McLaren pace and just can’t wait to repeat it everywhere.
“There’s no point in seeing things that aren’t there,” he said.
“You have to be realistic and if you see last weekend’s race, for example, and we’re on the same track a weekend later, then we didn’t have a chance to compete against these four cars. There was a huge gap.
“So we knew we would have a better car compared to last weekend, but we couldn’t expect to really fight them that way.
“At the same time, we don’t know what problems they had: Mercedes in particular.
“We know exactly where we stand as a team, we know what the deficit is. We also know what deficits the team has in terms of infrastructure and so on. So it’s no surprise that we are where we are.
“We are traveling. We have a clear plan on how we want to reduce this deficit and it takes a few years, but the good thing is that we are taking steps.
“We’re ambitious, but there is no magic and I just always think it’s good to have a sense of realism and not get carried away by results like Austria, which are great and give the team good energy.
“But it doesn’t change the picture, the realistic picture we have of our location.”
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