McLaren aiming to ‘strike back’ after “painful” F1 triple-header

The Woking outfit only scored four points across rounds in Mexico, Brazil and Qatar and has subsequently fallen 39.5 points behind Ferrari in the battle over third place in the constructors’ championship with just two races remaining. 

McLaren missed the chance to potentially claim big results when Daniel Ricciardo got caught up in a first-corner tangle with Valtteri Bottas in Mexico, while Lando Norris suffered a late puncture when running inside the top five in Qatar. 

"I think to a certain degree we have to accept that it has been tough for the entire team, scoring four points in three races is obviously painful,” said McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl.

"But if we also look at what happened and how we lost a lot of points, things have been out of our hands or bad luck. And that is part of the sport we are in.

"I think the good thing is that we have seen the gap [in Qatar] and we had a competitive car, two drivers who were competitive on track and the team did a good job with pitstops. So we just have to come back to Saudi and strike back.”

Seidl stressed the team is focused on ensuring it ends the season strongly irrespective of whether it finishes behind Ferrari in the constructors’ championship or not. 

"Unfortunately with the tyre failure, we missed the opportunity, so the triple header didn't really go our way,” he explained.

“But sometimes it goes like that in the sport. For us now, it is making sure in the last two races we keep fighting because, as long as it is theoretically possible, we will give it all for the constructors' championship.

"But independent of that, we simply want to finish on a high and score some good results again as we go into the winter break."