Hungaroring, Saturday 18 July
Hear from McLaren Formula 1 drivers Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris, and Team Principal Andreas Seidl after Qualifying in Hungary.
CARLOS SAINZ, #55
| FP3 | 1m16.545s (+1.108s) | 21 laps | 11th | |
| Q1 | 1m15.281s (Softs) | 4th | ||
| Q2 | 1m15.267s (Softs) | 8th | ||
| Q3 | 1m15.027s (Softs) | 9th |
“Today the car was feeling better after the changes in set-up. Yesterday we struggled too much with balance and tyre temperatures, but today we sorted some of our major issues and managed to put both cars in the top 10. I still had trouble predicting the car’s behaviour, especially in the last sector, so we still had margin to improve.
“Strategy and tyre management are going to be important tomorrow starting from P9 on the used set of Softs, but we’ll fight to score good points again here in Hungary.”
LANDO NORRIS, #4
| FP3 | 1m16.193s (+0.756s) | 18 laps | 7th | |
| Q1 | 1m15.444s (Softs) | 5th | ||
| Q2 | 1m15.085s (Softs) | 5th | ||
| Q3 | 1m14.966s (Softs) | 8th |
“I’m pretty happy with today. I don’t think the team could’ve done a much better job. I might have done a better job if I’d completely nailed the lap, as I made a couple of mistakes and maybe could’ve been a position higher. I’m a little bit disappointed by that, but, as a team and with the car, we’ve had challenges this weekend so I’m pretty happy we’ve come out of quali with P8 and P9. I don’t think there was a lot more to extract.
“We’re in a more realistic position of where we think the car performance is this weekend and we’ve got some work to do to improve, but today was the best we could do.”
ANDREAS SEIDL, Team Principal
“Another solid qualifying result for us with Lando and Carlos finishing in P8 and P9, and it’s encouraging to see how close we are to Ferrari and Red Bull at a track like this. The team, together with the drivers, have done a great job yesterday and overnight to improve the car following some difficult free practice sessions yesterday. The balance of the car has improved as a result of that progress and allowed both drivers straightforward entry into Q3. The changing weather conditions added an extra element of unpredictability for the team to deal with, but we handled the challenge well. We can be pleased with this qualifying result, which puts us in a good position to push tomorrow.
“With the weather forecast looking similar tomorrow to the last two days, we know anything can happen in the race. We expect a challenging race tomorrow starting from these positions. As always, we look both towards the front and how we can push forward, and also behind us, where a number of quick cars will have a free tyre choice. Managing this risk and reward will be the key to a good performance tomorrow. We’ll be focusing hard on taking any opportunities that present themselves – whether that’s caused by the weather or by strategic opportunities – as we know that overtaking can be difficult here. We now put our heads down, get ready for the race and prepare to fight for good points tomorrow.”