McLaren must not get carried away by recent F1 form - Seidl

Lando Norris out-qualified both Mercedes drivers at second race at the Red Bull Ring, narrowly missing out on pole position to Max Verstappen.

Norris lost out to Bottas through the pit stop phase in Austria but overtook Lewis Hamilton on track after he picked up damage to the rear of his car from a kerb at Turn 10. 

While McLaren enjoyed its strongest weekend of the season, Seidl has stressed that it mustn't get carried away.

“There’s no point to see things that aren’t there,” Seidl said. “You need to be realistic and, if you see the race for example last weekend and we’re here at the same track one weekend later, then we had no chance to battle these four cars. There was a huge gap.

“So we knew that we would have a better car compared to last weekend, but we couldn’t expect that we could actually fight them like that. At the same time, we don’t know which problems they experienced: especially Mercedes.”

Seidl says McLaren’s performance in Austria won’t change the picture for the remainder of the season.

“We know exactly where we stand as a team, we know what the deficit is. We know what the deficit also still is at the team’s side in terms of infrastructure and so on,” Seidl added. “So it’s not a surprise that we are where we are. We are on a journey. We have a clear plan of how we want to reduce this deficit and that takes some years, but the good thing is we make steps.

“We’re ambitious, but there is no magic and I simply think it’s always good to have a sense of realism, and not get carried away with results like Austria, which are great and give good energy to the team. But it doesn’t change the picture, the realistic picture we have in terms of where we are.”