For McLaren, the United States Grand Prix can’t come soon enough after a miserable Sunday in Mexico.
Starting seventh and eighth but on the soft compound tyre, the British team knew they were at a disadvantage compared to those just outside the top 10.
However, not even they could have predicted a first failure to score since a double retirement at Spa.
“It’s been a bad and frustrating afternoon for the whole team,” Carlos Sainz commented.
“After such a strong qualifying yesterday and a great start today, managing to slip into P4, it was very disappointing to go backwards after the first pit-stop.
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“The hard tyre simply ruined our race. We need to analyse in detail what happened and why we had such a poor stint on that compound,” he explained.
“Austin is right around the corner so there is no time to lose. We’ll keep our heads down and work hard to come back stronger next weekend.”
As for teammate Lando Norris his race was ruined by a loose wheel at his first pit stop, forcing McLaren to push his car back into the box.
“I think we had a cross-threaded wheel nut at my stop, I’m not too sure,” he revealed. “The team decided to play safe by immediately stopping the car and bring it back to check it.
“I was running pretty much a lap down and had several blue flags which made the race even more difficult. Some parameters of the car were beyond the limit and we retired to avoid further damage.”