McLaren’s Andreas Seidl Takes a Sly Dig at Christian Horner for Cost Cap Comments

The Hungarian Grand Prix turned out to be a disastrous outing for McLaren. Although Lando Norris made an excellent start, Valtteri Bottas shunted the Briton out of the race. In fact, the Finn’s collision sent Norris straight into Max Verstappen, which caused a lot of damage.

While the incident brought out red flags, the British outfit could not fix the car. In addition, Daniel Ricciardo suffered damage as well, which left him struggling en route to finishing P12.

After the race, Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner brought up the cost cap issue once again. However, McLaren Team Principal Andreas Seidl took a different approach.

McLaren Team Principal Andreas Seidl believes the cost cap doesn’t need to be addressed

The opening lap incident in Hungary caused a chain reaction, which left many top contenders in jeopardy. Along with Bottas, four other drivers, including Norris, retired from the race.

Although Max Verstappen finished the race, he sustained significant floor damage which worsened the Red Bull‘s performance. In addition, Sergio Perez‘s DNF meant Red Bull took no points for the second consecutive race.

Repairing damages of this scale costs millions, a point that Horner didn’t shy away from pointing out. However, Seidl admitted his team are not too worried about it. In addition, he admitted that managing the budget in such situations becomes important.

He said, “No (it doesn’t need addressing), not at all. I definitely will not go in the direction that Christian is going, mentioning every second sentence the cost cap and how much it will be hurt by it by an accident on track. In the end, it’s part of the game we’re in. It’s down to us to manage the budget in the right way.”

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Seidl: The challenge is same for everyone

The German admitted bringing enough to Spa by the end of the month will be a greater challenge after Hungary. However, he believes the cost cap poses the same challenge for every F1 team.

“At the beginning of the season, based on the experience of previous years, you simply have to account for certain crash damage per year,” said Seidl. “That’s what you have to figure in and that’s what we have in the budget and that’s the challenge that we are in. It’s the same for everyone.”

Norris’ crash meanwhile ended a run of 15 consecutive points finishes. While the Briton still sits third in the driver’s championship, Ferrari are now level on points with McLaren in the constructor’s championship.

Can the Woking-based outfit recover after the summer break? Only time will tell.

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