F1 | Hungarian GP | “It was encouraging to see we could actually battle Ferrari”, says Andreas Seidl
In a post-race debrief in Hungary, Andreas Seidl declared that matching Ferrari’s pace was not something they expected coming into this race, so it gives them more confidence going into the second half of the 2021 season.
Sunday’s race was not a good one for the McLaren team with Norris abandoning after the Lap 1 incident and Ricciardo managing just P12, but they did have an encouraging weekend. According to Andreas Seidl, team principal, the surprise was that they could match Ferrari’s pace during the qualifying session on Saturday, it encourages them going into the next races.
“Maybe look at the first races this season in similar tracks we couldn’t go their pace, this speaks also for the good work everyone has done back home, continuously improving the car and that’s encouraging for the second half of the season,'' Seidl said to selected media, including MotorLat.com.
''Ferrari is obviously a very strong team, very experienced, they have everything in place they need to have also a second strong half of the season, they have two top drivers and that’s why we need to be in our A-game in all aspects of going racing, we want to compete with that.
''But, again, we have seen the last couple of years now within the team, it’s encouraging we have everything in our hands to buckle it up into the last races.”
At the beginning of the race, every driver had compounds for dry track on, but it was raining a bit with chances of getting stronger, but before they could stop for wets there was an incident that caused safety car and then a red flag. It was a standing start, but every driver, except for Sire Lewis Hamilton pitted to change the set and start again from the pit lane.
Seidl declared that “it was definitely the right thing” to do, given that Formula 1 has the best drivers in the world.
When asked about Daniel’s pace in the last few laps of the race, where he was managing a 1 minute 25-26 second laps, he denied another pit stop would have changed the Australian’s place.
“I don’t think it would’ve changed anything. We simply didn’t have the pace, and all the damage the car had to hang in there until the end.
''Daniel tried but when he was almost stuck behind George quite some bit, it destroyed his tyres and in the end that’s where the damage, the degradation was put and so he had nothing left in his hands to fight for anything, unfortunately.”
