This is how McLaren explains the chaos in the Canadian commuter lane

Lando Norris reported to the radio that he was in the waiting room. His engineer confirmed receipt of the letter. After a brief period, Norris It was in the box where the cars should stop, in front of a box McLaren, and nothing went well: they put the wrong tire on the front left, and there was no tire on the right. Almost 20 seconds passed before the chaos was over and Norris was able to come up with a new batch of power.

How could this happen? McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl, was visibly uncomfortable with this question after the 2022 Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal. Because of this, he was brief and talked about a “connection problem” that resulted in the double stop failure Ricardo and Norris.

“I don’t want to go into too much detail because we have to deal with it internally. We have to analyze it and do better next time,” Seidl said.

The team has been warned that Norris will enter tires in Canada

Daniel Ricciardo, for whom McLaren had changed tires a few moments before (and with a very improved pit stop), admitted “some confusion” even upon seeing it in his rear-view mirror, and blamed it on the “late decision” to enter the pits. It is speculated that this is why something went wrong when changing the tire.

However, the McLaren mechanic was warned much earlier: Norris was straight, coming out of a hairpin bend, when the stage virtual safety carl On Lap 19. Immediately he asked the team: “What do we do?” The answer was immediate: “Enter the pits.”

Once there, Norris had to wait briefly for Ricciardo to leave, then took his place in front of the pits. Suddenly it was all overheating, and the mechanics were exaggerating because Norris’ tires weren’t ready.

Norris angered, he couldn’t believe it in the transfer lane in Montreal

How did Norris experience the chaotic scene at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit and how can it be explained? The McLaren driver shrugged the press: “You definitely know more than me. I only saw what I saw. They put different tyres on me, and then I lost a tyre. So I have no idea.”

Norris looked injured. He didn’t only lose close to 20 seconds on that hole, but he didn’t get anything good out of the race. “Everything went wrong. There weren’t any positive things,” he said. Then he issued a damning verdict: “The car is not good enough.”

He says he and Ricardo were “probably the slowest” with the MCL36 in Montreal. “So you can’t overtake and don’t do anything. But a day like this is good, because it shows we still miss a lot of things. Because we never see the real speed and sometimes we are lucky to be there. But then you can see where we really are.”

Norris continues that McLaren’s performance is not dependent on a particular track. And as to whether that dashed all hopes for the rest of the season, he would just say “yes”.

And he was sentenced: “Now I want to take a cold shower, have ice cream and then go home.”

Ricciardo, also without odds in Canada

Ricciardo didn’t finish happier in Canada either: “Maybe it wasn’t a clean race. It was one of those races where I felt like I was sticking with it. There were some overruns with the DRS, but I wouldn’t say we had any strong points. We didn’t notice. “.

“I passed a few times in the last round, but I think they were two cars on old tyres. We were slow and got out of the important sections,” explained the Australian McLaren.

McLaren drivers had to take care of the car in Canada

And that wasn’t all: Norris and Ricciardo had to save their car in the final stage of the race. team leader, Andreas SeidlTalk openly about the brakes. That’s why Ricciardo couldn’t attack in the end, and he finished in 11th place, 4.8secs off the points. Meanwhile, Norris finished nine seconds in 15th.

So for Seidel it was a “disappointing weekend for many reasons”. On the one hand, he talked about “the flaws in the race” and on the other hand about the “lack of pace of the car”.

“Overall, we had difficulties,” said Ricciardo.

For something positive, the Molding It wasn’t as dramatic in Canada as it was a week ago in Azerbaijan. Ricciardo revealed: “After Paco found out something had broken, that’s why my bounce was so bad.” “In Canada it was even better. There are big pits at this circuit before turn eight which annoys you a bit at the end of the race, but nothing more.”