McLaren boss Andreas Seidl has delivered an ominous warning for Daniel Ricciardo, just a week after the Australian led home teammate Lando Norris in a 1-2 finish at the Italian Grand Prix.
The result ended a nine-year drought for McLaren, who hadn’t won a race since 2012, and hadn’t scored a 1-2 since 2010.
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It saw the team jump ahead of Ferrari into third place in the constructors’ championship, while it gave Ricciardo his first podium finish of the year.
But it also came just a week after a miserable Dutch Grand Prix, which saw Norris trail home in 10th, one spot ahead of the Australian, with both cars lapped by race winner Max Verstappen.
It’s why Seidl isn’t getting carried away with the Monza result.
“What I respect, looking at Mercedes and Red Bull, is that they have a car that can fight for the win every single weekend,” he said.
“That is the gap we have as a team compared to these guys, so I am not too focused on a 1-2 or whatever. In the end it is a sensational result for us, but only seven days before we got destroyed in Zandvoort in terms of performance.
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“That is the gap we still have to the top teams with our car, and that is why we have to keep working hard in order to keep closing the gap in all kinds of circuits.”
While he downplayed the significance of the win, Seidl pointed out it was a just reward for the team, which has made steady progress in recent years after the disaster of their collaboration with Honda from 2015-2017.
Norris, in particular, has marked himself as a future world champion with a string of impressive results in 2021, while Ricciardo’s victory hopefully marks the turning point for the 32-year-old, who has struggled to adapt to the car since joining the team.
“It is the best motivation to keep going,” Seidl said. “I am obviously very happy with what both drivers showed, and I am very happy with Daniel making his steps since the summer break and getting back to where he wants to be, where we want to have him.
“And this is in addition to Lando, who is in unbelievable form this year and obviously that’s the drive that we want to have and we need to have in order to fight for Ferrari, and in order to keep going in our journey towards the front in Formula 1 again.”
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