Andreas Seidl said it was pleasing to score four points in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix thanks to Carlos Sainz Jr.’s eighth place finish despite feeling the McLaren F1 Team struggled with their pace compared to both the Haas F1 Team and Scuderia Toro Rosso.
Sainz managed to interject himself in the battle for the points and finished ahead of both Toro Rosso’s and Haas’ Romain Grosjean, with the gamble by the team to switch the Spaniard to the soft compound tyre during the safety car period ensuring his unbroken points scoring run at this home circuit continued.
“It was a great execution of the race today by the team because we have to acknowledge that Haas and Toro Rosso looked stronger than us in terms of pace,” said Seidl. “It was difficult for us in the race to move forwards in terms of positions, but thanks to great timing of the pit-stop when the Safety Car came out, we gained a position, and excellent strategy going onto Softs moved us into P8 in the end.
“Carlos did a great drive with good overtaking.”
Unfortunately, the second McLaren of Lando Norris was unable to finish the race after contact with Racing Point F1 Team’s Lance Stroll at turn two that caused the late race safety car, with Seidl believing, as did the stewards, that it was a racing accident between two battling drivers.
“Lando unfortunately had a difficult race when he lost positions in Turn Three after a good start, while the contact with Stroll, in my opinion, was a racing incident,” said Seidl.
Seidl was encouraged by the performance of the MCL34 throughout the weekend and he felt they made gains compared to the top teams of the midfield battle, something that he feels will bode well in the upcoming events.
“Overall, in terms of performance, it was encouraging to see that we definitely got closer to the top cars in the midfield when we compare our pace this weekend with the pace we had on a track with similar characteristics like China,” said Seidl.
“So, thanks also for the great work at the factory to bring the aero updates here.”
