McLaren encouraged by “good step forward” from Ricciardo

RaceFans Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl says Daniel Ricciardo has made progress after he returned to Q3 at Paul Ricard.

In brief

Seidl: McLaren glad to have both cars in Q3

Seidl drew positives from McLaren’s performance in qualifying for the French Grand Prix, as both drivers reached Q3.

“We saw the picture throughout the qualifying sessions that we have seen all weekend,” said Seidl. “So it wasn’t a surprise. [On the] positive side, it’s obviously good to have both cars again in quali three.

“It’s good to see also that Daniel made definitely a good step forward. [He] feels a lot more comfortable in the car, which allowed him again to go into quali three after the last two weekends, which were challenging for him.

Seidl added he is “optimistic we can fight for good points” in the race.

Perez: Red Bull low downforce wing will be race gain

Following the extended furore around Red Bull’s “flexi-wing,” the team have been forced to change their set-up for the French Grand Prix.

Now running a much more slimline wing, Perez said he believed it would provide an edge over Mercedes on Paul Ricard’s straights.

“I think that’s an advantage for tomorrow, come race day,” Perez said. “We have good straight-line speed and we are able to go through the corners and still look after the tyres.”

Schumacher: Haas “hopefully in the ballpark” for a fight

Mick Schumacher and Haas reached Q2 for the first time this season at the French Grand Prix. However it came in part due to the session being red-flagged after the Formula 2 champion crashed.

Looking forward to the race, Schumacher believes there is a chance for the Haas drivers to race rival teams for a change.

“The long run pace actually felt pretty good, so I’m looking forward to try and seeing where we’re going to end up,” he said. “Obviously, we saw in past appearances that Williams seemed to be very quick in qualifying and in race pace sometimes they’re a bit closer to us or we’re closer to them, however you want to see it. So hopefully we will be in the ballpark of being able to fight someone tomorrow.”

Leclerc’s recovery from 30th to first win

Arthur Leclerc took his first Formula 3 victory in Saturday’s second race in a lights-to-flag, confident fashion. However, he had had to recover 18 places, from 30th to 12th in the first race of the day, in order to take reverse grid pole after a mechanical failure had ruled him out of

“In the beginning this morning I went with my mind, I said I have to maximise all the opportunities that I get and focus on my job. We knew we had the pace straight away from free practice, but in qualifying I was a bit unfortunate. It was a really good recovery this morning, to be honest I didn’t expect to come back from so far back on the grid and we made it to P1 this afternoon.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Comment of the day

Red Bull are finally delivering on the potential they had throughout the hybrid era, says @Kingshark:

Red Bull have been stuck with a hugely inferior power unit to Mercedes for the last eight years. 2021 is the first time in the hybrid era where they don’t have much of a power deficit, and they are immediately championship contenders again.

Looks like Red Bull never really forgot how to build aerodynamics, it’s just that their wings have been clipped for most of the hybrid era.
@Kingshark

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Julie, M744All and Erivaldo Moreira!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is via the contact form or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

  • 50 years ago today Jacky Ickx won the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort for Ferrari

Newsletter

Get the best of our motorsport coverage after every F1 race in your inbox – sign up for the free RaceFans email Newsletter:

Author information

Hazel Southwell
Hazel is a motorsport and automotive journalist with a particular interest in hybrid systems, electrification, batteries and new fuel technologies....

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

4 comments on “McLaren encouraged by “good step forward” from Ricciardo”

  1. Yes very nice to see Ricciardo not lagging again. All that simulator time seems to have worked.

  2. Re McLaren: Sometimes they step up, sometimes they don’t.
    Re Mick Schumacher: Don’t think so because Haas can’t do jack s-word throughout the whole year.
    Re Arthur Leclerc: Nothing much happened when he won. Was expecting him against his rival team junior Hauger pulling off some wild battles like in Race 1, but yeah.
    Re Euroformula Open: I’m gonna check out how wild it was.

  3. Mick Schumacher lucked in to start 15th by crashing. His pay driver teammate like last few weekends is on his pace again.

  4. Adam (@rocketpanda)
    20th June 2021, 12:25

    Regarding a sense of Red Bull resurgence, or at least that once they’ve finally got a PU capable of keeping pace with the Mercedes they are proving their car was always good, I kinda hope this isn’t a false dawn as Honda are leaving. Sure Red Bull are taking over the PU but can they keep it delivering pace to match in the future? I hope they do.

Comments are closed.