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McLaren was “surprised” to have such a big advantage over nearest Formula 1 rival Ferrari in the French Grand Prix, according to team principal Andreas Seidl.
Ferrari was ahead in qualifying, with Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc fifth and seventh while Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo managed eighth and 10th, but in the race, McLaren had a decisive advantage.
Norris and Ricciardo came through to finish fifth and sixth respectively, while Ferrari struggled badly with front tyre graining and failed to score a point. Sainz finished 11th, while Charles Leclerc had to make a second pitstop and dropped to 16th.
“We were definitely surprised that we were that strong today compared to our direct competitors that we are fighting with in the constructors’ championship,” said Seidl.
“We have seen in several races a bit of this trend that we struggle more on Saturdays, and then we have a good race car on Sunday compared to the Ferraris when it comes to tyre management or tyre degradation.
“But if you start the race P8 and P10 you cannot expect to finish at P5 and P6. Because even if you have a stronger car, many times on a Sunday it is not easy to progress because once you’re stuck in traffic or in dirty air it’s difficult to actually show what the car can do.”
Ricciardo ran a near-identical strategy to Sainz but having initially run four places – and as much as five seconds – behind, during the first stint he closed at almost half-a-second a lap in the run-up to the first stops. This was because Sainz was struggling with the front-tyre graining and all-round degradation.
Ricciardo stopped first, meaning he was able to undercut his way past Sainz. In the second stint, when both were on mediums, Sainz lost an average of seven-tenths of a second per lap to Ricciardo on representative laps as he again struggled on the tyres.
This also allowed Norris to overcut his way past, with Sainz sliding out of the points. Leclerc had similar problems, having become the first driver to make a pitstop at the end of lap 14 after being overtaken by Ricciardo, and had to make a second pitstop thanks to the tyre troubles.
Ricciardo described the competitive swing against Ferrari on race day as “a crazy situation”. But despite the circumstances being unusual, there have been other races this year, notably Bahrain and Portugal, where Ferrari has struggled on race day.
Ferrari has had the upper hand in qualifying this year with its lead car ahead of the lead McLaren in all seven qualifying sessions, but things have been closer in the race. McLaren’s Paul Ricard result allowed it to reclaim third place in the constructors’ championship from Ferrari and build an advantage of 16 points.
“If you look at how this season went so far, it’s clearly a trend that we seem to struggle more to extract performance out of the car for one lap compared to what we can do on Sundays,” said Seidl when asked by The Race if its form on Sunday was above expectations.
“It seems like we have a very strong race car, which is dealing well with the challenge of tyre degradation as well and that gives us this advantage on Sunday.
“We have two strong drivers putting some strong drives in, some strong manoeuvres as well. The team did an excellent job on the strategy side in order to get us to these positions where we ended up, putting the drivers in strong positions in terms of being able to manage the tyres.
“Still, the aim is clear, we want to finish [better] on Saturday to make the Sundays easier. But it seems a bit like you cannot have both at the moment, so we have to find the right compromise.”
