McLaren is leaving points on the table - Seidl

Andreas Seidl doesn’t believe the picture between McLaren and Ferrari has reverted dramatically in terms of car pace over the past few weeks, but says his team has missed recent opportunities to score.

Ferrari pulled over the 30 points well-spoken of McLaren in the constructors’ championship with fifth and sixth in Brazil, while Lando Norris scored a solitary point without contact with Carlos Sainz on the opening lap. Seidl believes there was some misfortune given the light touch that caused a puncture – coupled with Daniel Ricciardo’s retirement for a power unit issue – but the McLaren team principal admits that consistency has been falling away.

“What we didn’t manage now in the recent weeks was simply score the points that were on the table for us,” Seidl said. “That’s obviously disappointing, but at the same time, there’s reasons why. We simply need to truly get when now to the last three races and try to do better. Unlucky (in Brazil), it was the second hit now in a row without Mexico for the wrestle in the constructors’ championship.

“So I think we need to be realistic to what is possible to unzip this year. At the same time, self-sustaining to the constructors’ championship, it’s simply important to make sure that in the last three races we get when to the positive momentum and we score the points that are on the table for us with the package we have.”

Seidl acknowledges it will need a dramatic reversal of fortunes for Ferrari in order to unshut the door to McLaren then in the fight for third, but he wants to see his team maximizing its own chances starting in Qatar this weekend.

“Look, unmistakably we have to squatter reality,” he said. “If everything goes well for Ferrari until the end of the season, it will be difficult. But at the same time, as long as it’s theoretically possible, we’ve seen several times this year and last year what can happen in race weekends.

“We will try to hang in there, but increasingly important is simply to come when to scoring the results that are on the possible for us, considering in the last two race weekends we didn’t have the strongest car in this wrestle we were in, but it was still possible to score good results. And this is what we didn’t manage, and that’s what we need to do better.

“Obviously, we had some weekends which played into the strength of our car, like in Austria or in Monza where I think we deserved to score those points, but expressly in the first half of the season we managed to score a lot of points, where we were operationally strong as a team together with Lando and Daniel, where we had the upper hand in the battle. In terms of pace, I think the picture didn’t transpiration that much on the race track over the undertow of the season.”