McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl believes a podium would have been very difficult even without a slow pit stop for Lando Norris. Norris lost third place to Valtteri Bottas in the pit stop phase due to a six-second pit stop on one of his tyres and was forced to settle for fourth place at Silverstone. "It was the same crew as always, and it was a hardware issues that had nothing to do with the work of the crew who have done great pit stops, especially in the last two months we have made some good steps forward." Seidl told RacingNews365.com and other select members of the press. "It was a hardware issue with a cross-threaded wheel nut, something that we hadn't seen in a long time. So we'll need to take some time to analyse what happened there, and the parts, to make sure it won't happen again. "Thanks to the training the crew did together with the hardware improvements it meant it was a delayed pit stop, but not a catastrophic pit stop like we have seen in the past. "Of course we don't want it to happen, but if it happened at least it was safe and it allowed us to stay in the race." Seidl feels that Mercedes would have used a different strategy if everything went to plan with Norris' pit stop so third place was always doubtful due to McLaren's pace deficit to Mercedes. "In terms of the outcome of the race, it's difficult to say if there was a chance to fight for third," said Seidl. "I think if we would have had a normal pit stop Valtteri would have gone long with his [first] stint and then create a tyre delta. "We have to be realistic and he would have just gone by. Overall for us, it was a very strong weekend."
Most read
