F1 should be about 'best cars' not chaos, insists Seidl

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McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl says that Formula 1 should be about the fastest, best-performing cars and drivers - and less about topsy-turvy antics resulting from unpredictable track conditions.

Seidl was speaking after a wild and wet Turkish Grand Prix at Istanbul Park. While it proved action-packed and hugely entertaining, Seidl felt it had been for the wrong reasons.

McLaren struggled in low-grip conditions at Istanbul Park on Friday and had a nightmare rain-hit qualifying on Saturday which resulted in both Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris being handed grid penalties.

Read also: McLaren fears late Ferrari surge for third in championship

But the team came good on race day, with Sainz racing his way to fourth aplace and Norris also in the points in eighth place, keeping the squad in the hint for third place in the constructors championship.

Even so, Seidl wasn't happy with how things had gone and felt that the focus of the weekend had been wrong.

“There were a lot of comments in both directions,” he said when asked whether the thrills and spills in Turkey had been good for the sport. “Is it positive or negative, what we have seen?

“It's clear everyone wants to see cars fighting on track, wants to see overtaking manoeuvres, wants to see also that not always the same cars at the front.

"We have seen that several times in wet conditions or tricky conditions that you have these exciting races with a lot of things happening," he acknowledged.

As a result there have been calls for reverse grid qualifying races of gimmicks like water sprinklers to 'spice up' the spectacle and put an end to processional races with the same teams at the front.

But Seidl said that this was antithetical to the spirit of F1, and that it should be about the top drivers in the fastest cars starting from the front row.

"F1 is also about, in normal conditions, putting up or designing the best car and making it the best performing car," he insisted.

"It's also normal that the best car is in front in qualifying and in the race as well. That's part of the DNA as well of F1."

The sport is set to introduce new sporting and technical regulations designed to improve on-track competition, and Seidl believes that this is the correct approach to maintaining F1's popularity moving forward.

“I think there's a lot of positive stuff coming from '22 onwards with the new technical regulations," he said.

"[They] should allow the cars to race closer together, which should help then also to see more overtaking manoeuvres.

"All the other stuff that's also happening like the financial cap should also help to get overall the field closer together," he added. "I think there is no reason to be pessimistic."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.