McLaren F1 Team principal Andreas Seidl admitted it was a “tricky” British Grand Prix despite Carlos Sainz Jr. securing a strong sixth place finish.
McLaren once again showed they were the fastest car in the tight midfield battle with Lando Norris running in seventh for the opening part of the race at Silverstone.
The Brit failed to score a point in his home race but the eight points won by Sainz helped moved McLaren a point further clear of closest challengers Renault F1 Team in the battle for fourth place in the constructors championship.
“Big congratulations and thank you again to the team here at the track and at the factory.
“We have again been the fourth-strongest team this weekend, and extended the gap to our main competitors in the midfield by one point.
“Overall, it was quite a tricky race today.”
Sainz had been knocked out in the second part of qualifying on Saturday meaning he started from thirteenth on the grid but the Spaniard fought back in the race and benefited from the safety car to move up to seventh at the restart.
The McLaren driver gained a position from the incident involving Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel and after holding off a late charge from Daniel Ricciardo, took home sixth place.
“On Carlos’s side, after having a great start, overtaking both Alfas, he obviously benefitted from the timing of the Safety Car.
“It came just at the right time for Carlos to gain track position to other cars, and at the same time allowed him to run the race on the optimum, one-stop tyre strategy.
“Ricciardo was
very strong towards the end of the race, and Carlos did a sensational job in
battling through and keeping him behind until the finish line.”
Norris
had looked like points were on the cards after a strong opening stint but lost
out in the safety car period and ultimately just missed out on the points as he
came home eleventh.“Lando also had
another great race start, overtaking Ricciardo on the first lap.
“Ricciardo then undercut Lando at the first pit-stop by stopping one lap earlier, and with the Safety Car we decided to split strategies between our cars, trying to gain track position for Lando.
“We then ran a two-stop strategy with fresh Hard tyres towards the end of the race, in order to try and overtake other cars which we thought might struggle with their tyres.
“Unfortunately
for Lando, after driving a great race, it didn’t end up with any points for him
because the tyres on our main competitors lasted longer than we anticipated.”
