The track was expected to favor McLaren due to its speed, but Seidl says the fast corners on the map are effectively straights and therefore average cornering performance is more important for a lap time.
Lando Norris qualified seventh for the Saudi Arabia GP, losing to regular rivals Charles Leclerc of Ferrari and Pierre Gasly of AlphaTauri, while Daniel Ricciardo missed Q3 in eleventh after suffering a floor damage in a curb.
“As for the track itself, I think that many of the corners that were intended for high speeds are actually not corners because they are full-throttle corners,” said Seidl. “And that’s why I think it’s not a typical, let’s say high-speed, cornering track, there are a lot of medium-speed corners.
“And that’s why I think we’re pretty much exactly where we are on this type of track, in the middle of this battle between several teams, Ferrari, AlphaTauri and us, which we’ve seen several times this year.”
Seidl admitted that the team should still have done better, with Ricciardo’s incident being particularly expensive.
“Of course I’m not entirely satisfied with the result of qualifying today,” he said. And I think we had a pretty competitive car in qualifying today.
“But unfortunately Daniel couldn’t show what he can because of a damage to the curb on the ground, because I think he had good pace. And couldn’t get into Q3, which was a shame.
“That cost a lot, because in the end the floor was on the floor. That is, in his last sector, where I think he had two green sectors, sector one, sector two, the plank was on the ground, and so he lost a lot on the straights. I don’t know how many tenths they have, but that took away any chance of advancing into Q3, which would have been easy without this damage. “
Sparks from Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
Norris, meanwhile, was compromised by a yellow flag that forced the team to change their running schedule.
“I also think that on Lando’s side we weren’t able to show the full potential of our pace today for two reasons. After he got the yellow flag on his second lap, the middle run, the first run in Q2, we decided to switch to the soft tires to make sure we could get into Q3.
“At that point it wasn’t clear what everyone was going to do, which then endangered Q3 because he didn’t have two shots at new tires. Therefore a bit disappointed with a P7. “
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