Photo: McLarenF1 / Twitter
Until recently, McLaren and Alpine have been engaged in a season-long battle to see which of them is the best midfield team in all of Formula 1. However, while McLaren’s P4 and P5 result in Singapore was a very strong one, Alpine finishing P4 and P7 at Suzuka gave the French outfit a 13-point advantage with just four races remaining.
According to McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl, it could prove “very tough” for the Papaya Orange outfit to stay in the fight until the very end.
“It’s important now for us really to focus on ourselves, make sure that we execute clean weekends, extract every single session the maximum that we have at the moment in our car,” he said, as quoted by Motorsport. “Only then do we have a chance to stay in the battle with a very strong Alpine team.”
“We have to acknowledge they did a great job so far this season. It will be very tough for us to stay in this battle until the last lap in Abu Dhabi, but that’s what we’re here for.”
Despite a surging Alpine, McLaren remains the only team outside of Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes to secure a podium finish this season, with Lando Norris finishing third at Imola back in April. Norris even went on record saying how surprised he was that McLaren have been able to stay in the fight with Alpine, seen as how this year’s MCL36 race car has proven tricky to drive.
“Reliability will play an important part as well in the last races now,” added Seidl. “But still I think we have a good car, we have a good team, we have two strong drivers, and if we get our act together, I’m sure we can stay in this battle until the last lap.”
Next up on the calendar is the 2022 United States Grand Prix at COTA in Austin, Texas, taking place on Oct 23.
“It’s important now for us really to focus on ourselves, make sure that we execute clean weekends, extract every single session the maximum that we have at the moment in our car,” he said, as quoted by Motorsport. “Only then do we have a chance to stay in the battle with a very strong Alpine team.”
“We have to acknowledge they did a great job so far this season. It will be very tough for us to stay in this battle until the last lap in Abu Dhabi, but that’s what we’re here for.”
Despite a surging Alpine, McLaren remains the only team outside of Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes to secure a podium finish this season, with Lando Norris finishing third at Imola back in April. Norris even went on record saying how surprised he was that McLaren have been able to stay in the fight with Alpine, seen as how this year’s MCL36 race car has proven tricky to drive.
“Reliability will play an important part as well in the last races now,” added Seidl. “But still I think we have a good car, we have a good team, we have two strong drivers, and if we get our act together, I’m sure we can stay in this battle until the last lap.”
Next up on the calendar is the 2022 United States Grand Prix at COTA in Austin, Texas, taking place on Oct 23.
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