Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Sunday 28 August

Hear from McLaren Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo, and Team Principal Andreas Seidl after the Belgian Grand Prix.

As it happened

• Both drivers got away cleanly picking up positions on the opening lap
• The Safety Car was deployed on lap two with Bottas in the gravel and Hamilton stopped at Turn 16. Both retired from the race moving Daniel up to P6 and Lando up to P12
• Daniel was passed by Verstappen on Soft tyres before Albon moved ahead of the Australian
• Lando overtook Magnussen on the Kemmel Straight to take P11
• Both cars moved into the top 10 as Albon pitted in the Williams
• Sainz emerged from the pit-lane behind Daniel but took just three turns to regain the position. Simultaneously, Lando was passed by the other Ferrari, Leclerc
• Daniel pitted for Hard tyres dropping down to P15
• Lando followed suit, taking a new set of Hard tyres and emerged in P17
• With other cars in the middle of the pack pitting, Daniel moved up to P11 with Lando two cars behind
• Lando was overtaken by Stroll who was on fresh Mediums
• Both AlphaTauri cars opted to pit meaning Daniel was P10 and Lando P12 just after the halfway point
• Following a number of pit-stops, both cars re-entered the top 10 in P8 and P9
• Both Alpines moved ahead of the McLarens before Lando and Daniel both opted for a second stop, changing to Mediums
• Lando was able to breeze past Zhou on older tyres as the race came to a close with Lando finishing P12 and Daniel P15

Started	17th
Finished	12th
Fastest lap	1m51.678s on lap 31 (+2.324s, 5th)
Pit-stops	2, lap 13 [Medium/Hard] (2.5s) and lap 29 [Hard/Medium] (3.3s)

"It was a difficult race but pretty much as I expected really. It wasn’t easy to overtake, and I just got stuck in the DRS trains. Not a lot to do but I think we did a good job. The little changes we made to the car for this weekend made a bit of a difference so there’s still some positives to take from it all. We tried but we just weren’t quick enough this time around. We’ll keep working hard, keep pushing, take a look at everything in the next few days and try and take the fight back to the Alpines in Zandvoort."

Started	7th
Finished	15th
Fastest lap	1m53.080s on lap 34 (+3.726s, 17th)
Pit-stops	2, lap 12 [Medium/Hard] (2.3s) and lap 32 [Hard/Medium] (2.7s)

"I think it was visible to see our struggles today. Not to be pessimistic but I knew coming into the race that we would probably find it hard through the first and third sector with the rear wing that we were forced to use from yesterday. Obviously, I hoped that I’d have enough speed in the second sector to try and make something happen – but we just couldn’t overtake with the speed we had.

"I know I wasn’t the only one who struggled overtaking today, it looked like some cars were just so much quicker than others on the straight and that was it. In clear air, we certainly had a bit more speed but we just lost so much time being stuck behind cars and couldn’t really make anything happen. I think there was a lot of opportunities with the mixed grid but I appreciate Lando’s race didn’t seem that much better so maybe we just didn’t have the package. We’ve got a week to come back for Zandvoort. We’ll see how we go there, and hopefully it's a good weekend."

"It’s been a tough Sunday for us here in Spa. Warmer conditions today contributed to a lack of pace which, in the end, resulted in us going backwards during the race. Lando finished P12 and Daniel P15, and it wasn’t possible for them to score a better result.

"My thanks to the team at the track and back at the factory, together with our colleagues at Mercedes HPP. The result does not reflect the effort this weekend. Special mention also to our pit-crew who once again did excellent work across our four pit-stops. We’ll use the next few days to reset, regroup and analyse our performance to see what we can learn that will help us come back stronger next weekend in Zandvoort. We go again in five days."

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