Head of the Woking F1 squad Andreas Seidl analyzed the team's momentum for the 2022 season, explained his concern with the pace of the rivals and justified the mistakes in Montreal
McLaren is still in fourth position in the Constructors' World Championship for the 2022 Formula One season, with 65 points earned. However, after scoring only six points in Baku, the Woking team left the weekend in Canada with zero points.
Both Alpine and Alfa Romeo - McLaren's main opponents in the fight for the fourth force of the year - scored more points in the last two F1 races: 17 and 10, respectively. Naturally, therefore, concern surrounds the atmosphere of the traditional British team.
"If you look at the last two races, there is definitely an observation that we are regressing, especially compared to Alpine," McLaren's F1 boss Andreas Seidl said. "Some other cars are showing signs of improvement, like Aston Martin. So it's clear that we need to 'raise the bar' in all areas: reliability, operations, performance. We need to make sure that we stay in the fight for fourth position (in the Constructors)," he added.
Speaking specifically about the race in Montreal, it was a race to forget for McLaren. Daniel Ricciardo had another timid race, in 11th place, while Lando Norris - unrecognizably - was not even a factor throughout the weekend. The icing on the cake was the miscalculation in a double pit-stop on the 19th lap of the Canadian GP, which further compromised the British driver's race.
"Obviously Sunday was a disappointing day for us. It was a disappointing weekend for a number of reasons. Reliability issues, an operational problem in the race... but also in terms of pace, where we want to be," Seidl said. "On the operational side, at the pit-stop, we had a communication problem that snowballed in the end and resulted in what we saw. We need to analyze and come back stronger. Obviously, I don't want to go into too much detail because it's something we need to review internally, but as I said, it was a communication problem," he concluded.
"In both cars, at the end of the race, we had to manage some parameters. The brakes as well. So it was not possible for Daniel (Ricciardo) to keep the pace and to attack," the McLaren Formula One boss finally justified.