McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl has apologised to Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris following a botched pit stop at the Canadian Grand Prix which ruined both drivers’ races.
After qualifying ninth, Ricciardo looked set to record consecutive top-10 finishes for the first time since last year’s United States Grand Prix, while teammate Norris started 14th after being eliminated in Q2 with a power issue.
But neither finished within the points at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve as a disastrous pit stop on lap 20 derailed both of their races, leaving Seidl to admit the team “didn’t deserve points” after Monday’s efforts.
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“A very disappointing afternoon for us here in Montreal,” he told McLaren’s website after the race.
“It’s been a tough weekend in general, with the car lacking pace, having reliability issues and suffering an operational issue in the double-shuffle pitstop during the virtual safety car period. We have to acknowledge our competitors did a better job and therefore we didn’t deserve points today.”
Pitting under the virtual safety car after Mick Schumacher was forced to retire, both Ricciardo and Norris were brought down by what Sky Sports pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz called a “disastrously slow stop”.
Ricciardo was left sitting stationary for far too long, which in turn left Norris waiting even longer as McLaren attempted a double stacked stop.
“They were effectively stacking, but I don’t think the tyres were ready for Lando,” Kravitz said.
“He lost about six or seven or eight seconds.”
“Ricciardo came in, he had a slow stop, the front right was the one that just wouldn’t come off,” David Croft added in commentary.
“That then saw Lando having to wait a bit longer and I don’t think the tyres were ready, it was the medium tyre on the front left and if we look at the front right, we’re just seeing the confusion because they put the wrong tyre on the front left.
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“Now they can get the hard tyres on which is what they wanted to put on, but they were just waiting and waiting for that to happen.”
Seidl offered both Ricciardo and Norris an apology, conceding the team “didn’t give them the package they deserved” this weekend.
“We have to use this as an opportunity to learn, and come back stronger in two weeks for our home race at Silverstone,” he said.
Speaking to F1‘s official website post-race, Ricciardo said a lack of pace mixed with managing mechanical issues made it impossible for the British team to compete for points.
“We were just not really quick today, we were struggling for some pace and then we had to manage a few issues as well so not being able to push and attack put us too far out of the battle for points,” he said.
“Simply not a very fast-paced race for us. Just a little bit of temperature stuff [was holding us back]. So just managing that.
“Pushing 100 per cent we could just hang on to the top 10 but once we started to manage temperatures and things like this, it put us out of the fight. I would love to have had a better race but we simply just weren’t quick enough.”
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