McLaren says Mexico setback 'an opportunity to learn from'

McLaren F1 boss Andreas Seidl says the Woking-based outfit has many things to take away from last Sunday's Mexican Grand Prix, starting with the fact that it still has to work to do "to become a better team".

McLaren race was a story of starting near the front where it battled the usual suspects only to slide out of contention and mishandle a pitstop, leaving the papaya squad with zero points for the first time since Spa and more questions than answers.

At least there was a clear reason for Lando Norris' botched pitstop, but both Carlos Sainz and Norris' dismal pace on the hard tyre baffled McLaren.

• McLaren's Sainz at a loss to explain dismal hard tyre stint

"A painful Sunday for us, after having several good race weekends or good Sundays, for different reasons," said Seidl.

"First of all, especially on the hard tyres, we didn’t have the pace we have seen in the last two days with the car.

"It is something we need to analyse and understand, if it was related to track temperatures being higher, or something else.

"Then obviously after having good starts with both cars, having the pitstop issue on Lando’s car destroyed his race and his race was over."

Seidl admitted to being puzzled by the contrast in performance between qualifying and race day.

"Definitely in terms of pace it was a setback," he added. "And actually it was the first time in quite some time that we have seen a different pace on Sunday compared to the other two days of the weekend so we simply need to analyse what the issue is.

"Lots of opportunities today to learn from and simply was a reminder that we still have a lot of work to do to become a better team.

"A day like this is part of the process for our team to become a better team."

Seidl admitted that McLaren was lucky to conceded only a handful of points to its main midfield rival - Renault - in the Constructors' standings, thanks to all cars from the top teams tying up the first six spots in the race's final results.

"As we always said it is not done until it is done because you just need a strange race and suddenly someone scoring big points," said the German.

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter