F1 | British GP | Seidl: “Ricciardo’s making steps and feeling more comfortable with the car in qualifying and the race”
McLaren has started 2021 on the same high note last season had ended, managing to hold on to the P3 in the constructors’ standings after the first ten rounds, with Norris’s consistency, in the points for a record breaking 15 consecutive races with the British team, and Ricciardo gradually adjusting to his new car.
Silverstone was kind to both drivers: Norris had to be satisfied with a fourth place after a slow pit that ruined his chances at a podium, but advanced in the drivers’ standings, returning to P3, while Ricciardo ended in P5 for his best ever result with McLaren. Still, the Australian driver was never really close to his teammate, and ended the race with a 14-second gap.
McLaren’s Team Principal Andreas Seidl told MotorLat.com and other selected media that he was pleased with Ricciardo’s progress throughout the season, and considered his performance in the British GP a massive improvement:
"Like also Daniel said at the end of the race, there’s still things to improve to match Lando, but the important thing is that he’s making steps, feeling more comfortable with the car both in qualifying and in the race, and that’s a big step forward compared to the previous races, which is good."
When asked if such a good performance could be a turning point for his season, Seidl replied that it could be, if he holds on to the consistency showed: "I think he himself would speak about a turning point if he could pull it off now more often, and if he could repeat the same performance in Hungary."
"He just felt not comfortable with pushing the car at the limit, probably the track layout suited him more as well here in Silverstone in order to stay confident and push the limit. And yeah, it’s important to show the same in Hungary in two weeks."
Seidl also talked about the chances for Norris to fight until the end of the season for P3 in the drivers’standings, alongside Bottas and Perez, obtaining so far maybe less podiums, but showing an impressive consistency:
"Now if that’s a realistic target it’s difficult to say because the Red Bull car and the Mercedes car are really better cars, and Valtteri and Checo also showed some great races this year, and also from the past we know what they can do. So it’s down to Lando’s strong performance together with the team and the competitive car we have this year, we managed after ten races to be in P3 so it’s not unrealistic to stay there."
"If we can put up the second half of the season again like this, plus if, we have to be honest as well, one or other times something goes wrong on Red Bull or Mercedes’s side, because we’re not in a position yet purely down to the performance to beat them."
Seidl doesn’t rule out Ferrari as well in the fight for P3 in the drivers’ standings, an additional motivation boost for the team: "We shouldn’t forget that we have a very strong competition from the two Ferrari drivers, but, of course we wake up in the morning because we want to win on Sunday."
"That’s not possible at the moment yet down to our performance, so we try to do better in races by strategy, driving performance or staying out of trouble more than the others, or by luck from time to time. This all combined brought us in the position where we are at the moment, thanks again to the great performance of our drivers and our team, here at the track and back home."
He also said that the newly introduced Sprint Qualyfing session went according to plan, and that was a good indication for what happened in Sunday’s race: "To be honest, i would say that the weekend played out in terms of strategy and tyres a bit as we had anticipated. I think i’ve got a great picture of race paces yesterday it was obvious to see already that Charles was very very strong."
F1
via MOTORLAT https://ift.tt/3qDQm7r
July 21, 2021 at 01:56PM
Leave a Reply