McLaren has outlined the scale of the damage that Daniel Ricciardo’s car sustained during the opening lap of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Ricciardo was collected by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc after the Monegasque driver was hit by Lance Stroll at the first corner.
Ricciardo picked up significant damage in the collision but was able to continue for the remainder of the race.
His team-mate Lando Norris was involved in a separate incident at the same corner, however he was forced to retire from the event.
Speaking after the grand prix, McLaren’s Team Principal Andreas Seidl revealed that Ricciardo was losing roughly seven or eight-tenths of a second per lap.
“It’s just disappointing but at the same time you can’t do anything about it,” Seidl said.
“That disappointment doesn’t bring you anything. We just have to accept it, that these things can happen.
“We know that we have a strong car, we know we have a strong team and we have two strong drivers.
“With this combination we have everything in our hands to have a good second half of the season – that is what we are focusing on.
“On Daniel’s car, I think the front wing was damaged, then the bargeboards, the new ones got damaged heavily and the floor on the side, [the] front of the rear wheels on the right-hand side was damaged as well, so huge loss.
“Probably seven, eight-tenths a lap plus obviously the consequences it has then on the stint.”
Ricciardo was overtaken by Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen in the latter stages of the race after both made an extra pit stop for fresh tyres.
The overtakes denied Ricciardo championship points from the race, leaving McLaren to walk away from the event with zero points scored for the first time since last year’s Russian Grand Prix.
Seidl doesn’t believe McLaren would’ve benefitted from mirroring Red Bull and Alfa Romeo’s strategy due to the extent of Ricciardo’s damage.
“I don’t think it would have changed anything,” Seidl said. “We simply didn’t have the pace with all the damage the car had to hang in there until the end.
“Daniel tried but he was also stuck behind George for quite some bit. He destroyed his tyres and in the end, plus with the damage he had, the degradation was quite a bit higher than normal.
“So we had nothing left in his hands to fight for anything, unfortunately.”
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