McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said the team deserved its worst result of the season in Azerbaijan after a poor weekend.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri started seventh and ninth respectively, both hitting the barriers in qualifying. From there Norris finished the race seventh while Piastri crashed out on the first lap.
Norris lost a place at the start, then another at the restart, but looked poised to gain positions when he came in for his pit stop.
However he suffered a slow pit stop, for the second time in as many races. That left him stuck behind Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda at the finish.
“We stayed out as much as possible to see if there would be a Safety Car, which here is not unlikely,” Stella told the official Formula 1 channel. However there was only one Safety Car appearance, at the beginning of the race.
“I think ultimately we finished in the position that we deserved, considering the job that we have done, even if the car was possibly slightly quicker,” said Stella.
“But we should have expressed this potential yesterday in qualifying and we didn’t. So lots of learning, we take it on the chin and we will come back stronger as a team and as drivers in Singapore.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Many drivers found it difficult to overtake in Baku, including Norris. “We didn’t have a fast enough car today to be able to overtake, so we spent all day in traffic,” said Stella.
Following their defeat at Monza two weeks earlier, this is the first time all season McLaren have failed to win for two consecutive races. Stella said the team need to improve their performance at high-speed circuits such as these.
“Overall, there’s quite a lot of work for us to do to be performing in circuits like this in Baku, where the corners are short and there’s a lot of braking,” he said. “We seem to be losing some of the advantage that we have in some other tracks.”
Piastri endured by far his worst weekend of the year, crashing in qualifying and the race. Stella has no doubt he will bounce back.
“We had issues with Oscar, which are quite uncharacteristic,” said Stella. “I’m sure we get the learning from it and come back stronger. He’s a very, very solid guy, very solid driver.”
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a daily email with all our latest stories – and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:
