McLaren F1 Team team principal, Andreas Seidl, says the difficulty of overtaking at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya meant the team achieved the best result possible.
The Woking-based company have enjoyed a strong start to the 2021 season, cementing themselves as the team to beat for third-place in the constructors’ championship.
However, the Spanish Grand Prix was a difficult weekend for McLaren to show their full potential, with Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow taking the upper hand in Barcelona. Yet, a sixth-place finish by Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris in eighth meant the team scored a good amount of points, maintaining a slight gap to Ferrari, which has shortened to five points.
Despite not being the strongest in Barcelona, Seidl says the team executed a good strategy that saw Norris and Ricciardo score strong points.
“The team executed a very good race today, resulting in both Daniel and Lando gaining a place on their starting positions after each raced hard from lights to flag,” Seidl said.
“Given how difficult overtaking is here in Barcelona, that was pretty much everything possible for us to achieve today.
“We’re in a very close battle in the Constructors’ Championship and scored strong points on a weekend where we didn’t have the upper hand.”
The Portuguese Grand Prix and Spanish GP was the first double-header of the season, and Seidl wanted to praise the efforts of the staff on the road and back at the factory.
“Thanks to the entire team, our drivers and our colleagues at Mercedes HPP for a very good job managing our first double-header of the season across the last two weeks.
“Big thanks particularly to the development and production teams back at the MTC who have pushed very hard in recent weeks to deliver the upgrades we had on the car this weekend.”
