'Didn't expect that we could be so close to Mercedes and Red Bull'

The Monaco Grand Prix had a surprising podium. Where Formula 1 experts saw the first place of Max Verstappen coming, the performances of Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris were excellent.

The McLaren driver drove a strong race again and achieved the third place. The team did not see this performance coming in advance. "I would say we definitely didn't expect that in terms of pace, that we could be so close to Mercedes, Red Bull, and also Ferrari," Andreas Seidl told Motorsport.com. "We have seen since the beginning of the season, and in the first races, we were always struggling in the low-speed sections, so that was really encouraging to see this weekend."

The McLaren team boss sees McLaren fighting with Ferrari for third position in the world championship. "For the championship, how the race played out was obviously a good outcome for us because, seeing the strong pace Ferrari had on Thursday and also on Saturday, yes there was high risk to lose a lot of points to them."

Disappointing performance Ricciardo

His teammate Daniel Ricciardo did a lot less in Monaco. Where he already showed during free practice and in qualifying that he was struggling, the race was also disappointing. The Australian came no further than twelfth place.