Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace, Sunday 17 November

Hear from McLaren Formula 1 drivers Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris, and Team Principal Andreas Seidl after racing in Brazil.

CARLOS SAINZ, #55

	Started	20th
	Finished	3rd
	Fastest lap	1m13.158s on lap 63 (+2.460s, 16th)
	Pit-stops	1, lap 29 [Soft/Medium] (2.4s)

“Yes! What a day! It’s a weird first podium not being there straight after the race, but I’m extremely happy with our race today. To finish P3 coming all the way from the back of the grid was a big challenge, but we fought until the end with everything we had! It was a very eventful race and I think I was the only car to do a one-stop strategy. It was really difficult to hold the other midfield cars behind after the two Safety Car re-starts, but I managed to defend my position well and took advantage of what happened at the front of the race.

“A good first stint, a great pit-stop from the guys and a very challenging and long stint to bring it home and finish P3 for the first time in my career. Congrats to the whole team, here and back in Woking! My first podium is obviously very special but we need to keep pushing to step up there on pure pace! That’s what we’re really here for, that has to be our goal!”

LANDO NORRIS, #4

	Started	10th
	Finished	8th
	Fastest lap	1m12.328s on lap 63 (+0.905s, 7th)
	Pit-stops	2, lap 27 [Soft/Hard] (2.7s) and lap 53 [Hard/Medium] (3.3)

“A good race for the team and me! I had a really good launch off the line and was up to P5 after the first few corners. We’re doing a good job in this respect and it’s a good strength of ours. The rest of the race was tough, especially the first stint on the Softs. I struggled a lot compared to Daniel [Ricciardo] in the later laps with the tyres, which we kind of expected.

“We then did the Hard tyre stint and was close to getting Daniel after the stop. I tried to look after the tyres. He wasn’t pushing too much, so I was trying to push, and see if he made any mistake where I could get past him. But he didn't and was just controlling the pace. We decided to box for Mediums and go for the two-stop – which turned out to be really good. A fun race, at least in the third stint, with some overtaking. Massive thanks to everyone back at the factory and at the circuit for their hard work.”

ANDREAS SEIDL, Team Principal

“P4 in the Constructors' World Championship for McLaren secured. First podium for Carlos in his F1 career and first podium for McLaren since 2014. What an amazing achievement for the entire team back home in the factory plus here at the track, and for Carlos and Lando after putting in so much hard work throughout the year.

“Big, big thank you to every single member of the team. We woke up this morning after a difficult Saturday with a clear commitment to never give up and fight back. We executed well today as a team, we had some difficult strategy decisions to make, did great pit-stops, had two brilliant race drivers in the cars and in the end deserved to score this P3 and P8 after the cars at the front were dropping out.

“We keep our heads down and now focus on securing our positions in the Drivers' World Championship. The achievement this year together with the podium today is the perfect motivation for all of us to keep working hard in order to score podiums again in the future for McLaren based on our own outright performance.”

#BrazilGP

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