The McLaren team on for a long night ahead to “redress the balance” after a disappointing first race in Berlin.
After such a strong qualifying form this season, it was a surprise to many to see neither of the McLaren cars advances out of the group stages in qualifying.
The team had shown little pace across the two preparatory practice sessions of the weekend, whereas they had previously shone on one lap pace.
Berlin has also been a circuit the team in its former guise of Mercedes has seen success; last season’s champion Stoffel Vandoorne scored a double podium for the team while Nyck de Vries won one of the races.
Team Principal Ian James says the team will continue to work hard tonight and in the practice session tomorrow to bridge the gap between the team and the rest of the field.
“We struggled to unlock the necessary pace throughout the practice sessions, and this trend continued into qualifying where we weren’t able to progress beyond the group stages, with Jake starting in P12 and René in P14. “
“We need to work on ensuring that we can unlock the performance which puts us in a better position from the start. This remains the focus of the team. We have another opportunity tomorrow to redress the balance – and the work is already well underway.”
Rookie Jake Hughes had a challenging debut on the Berlin Templehof circuit in papaya, involved in an incident off the back of Dan Ticktum’s crash with Vandoorne.
“Despite the incident, the pace isn’t where we want it to be. With the doubleheader weekend, we’ll look at the data and see where we can make improvements.”
Rene Rast also had a difficult day, making it to the end of the race with some damage after his collision with Sergio Sette Camara. However, the German driver feels there is much to learn from his running, especially with the new tyre at the top of the discussion points list this weekend.
“By pushing to the end of the race, we learned more about how these Gen3 cars run on the track, which will be helpful ahead of the second race. We’ll debrief and analyse the data to work out how we can maximise our car for tomorrow.”
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