The Qatar GP has definitively quenched the remaining hopes of the McLaren to be able to overtake Ferrari again in the challenge between the two historic F1 teams for third position in the Constructors’ World Championship. After the disappointing races in Mexico and Interlagos, the papaya team came out with a handful of flies in their hands even from the Losail weekend, despite the fact that the track on paper favored the MCL35 over the single-seater from Maranello. Instead, the reds have stretched further in the standings, taking the lead to 39.5 points. Reliability problems particularly affected the British team. Lando Norris had to give up a possible fifth place finish due to a puncture, falling to ninth place.
But the real nightmare Sunday was the one lived by Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian has never appeared competitive, always sailing quite far from the points and competing in a completely anonymous race. At the end of the race, however, it was the same driver of McLaren who revealed the problem that haunted him for the entire Grand Prix. In fact, due to a technical problem, the former Renault and Red Bull driver found himself having to save fuel in an exasperated way right from the first corners after the start. “We had to save fuel very early in the race – Ricciardo told reporters – I started doing what I thought was a lot already, but it wasn’t enough. Sometimes we lost two seconds per lap just to save fuel. By doing this the brakes cool down, the tires cool down and you lose grip. It becomes a vicious circle “.
“We saved fuel for practically half of the race – Ricciardo added again – and this has led us astray. And then Tom [ingegnere di pista di Ricciardo] he said not to save fuel anymore and to push hard. I only say Tom because he is giving me the information, but there has clearly been a system error. It’s a shame, because when I was able to push I was able to lap at the times we had as a reference. I have never had to do so much ‘fuel saving’ – concluded # 3 – I had to lift my foot at every turn and it was never enough. I don’t know what happened to the system “.
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