Andreas Seidl believes McLaren must accept the fact that they will most likely lose the battle for third place this season to Ferrari.
All year, the two teams have been in a tight battle for the final slot in the Constructors’ Championship, with McLaren leading for the majority of the season.
However, with to their engine improvement, Ferrari has firmly gained the upper hand in recent rounds, and now leads by 31.5 points with only three rounds remaining.
Seidl acknowledges that P3 is all but lost for his team.
“Clearly, we have to face the reality. If everything goes well for Ferrari now, at the end of season it will be difficult,” he said.
“But at the same time, as long as it’s theoretically possible, and I’ve seen several times this year and last year what can happen on a race weekend, we will try to hang in there.
“More important is simply now to get back to simply scoring the results that are on the table for us because I think also in the last two race weekends, where we didn’t have let’s say the strongest car in this battle we are in, it was still possible to score good results.
“That is what we didn’t manage, and that’s what we need to do better.”
While Ferrari has been significantly more competitive in recent races, Seidl believes McLaren has yet to reach its full potential.
One mango car went from front to back from the start in both Mexico and Brazil after being involved in a collision, and Daniel Ricciardo retired from the top 10 at Interlagos due to an engine issue.
“It is clear that on certain tracks our car is a lot stronger,” said Seidl.
“But what we didn’t manage now in recent weeks is simply to score the points that were on the table for us. And that’s obviously disappointing. But at the same time, there are reasons why.
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