Andreas Seidl believes the decision to part ways with Daniel Ricciardo at the end of the year had no bearing on the outcome of the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix for McLaren.
Neither Ricciardo nor team-mate Lando Norris scored points in the Spa-Francorchamps race, the latter best-placed for the team in 12th place.
Ricciardo meanwhile trailed home in 15th, dropping down the order following his second stop late in proceedings.
“I think going into this weekend, doing the announcement, of course, myself, everyone as a team felt sad,” Seidl said when asked by Speedcafe.com if team morale impacted the race result.
“But at the same time, it was important to get the message out before the weekend so we could also focus in on these last nine races of the season.
“Daniel is very experienced, we are very experienced as a team. We are fully committed – Daniel’s side, our side of the team – to give it all again together and try to finish our chapter on a high.
“So I’ve not seen, let’s say, events from before going to the weekend that had any effect on the outcome of the race weekend.
“I think if I look at Daniel’s performance this weekend, the performance of the team for example also in terms of pit stops today, everyone was fully focused, gave it all, we simply didn’t have a car that was quick enough.”
Ricciardo started the race seventh and rose to fifth as Lewis Hamilton was forced out on the opening lap and he found a way by Alex Albon.
He then slipped behind the Williams driver again midway through the opening stint, falling to 10th after his first pit stop.
The Australian then remained in a points-paying position until he stopped for a second time, on Lap 32, which dropped him to 15th.
“We obviously started there [in the points] and was able to get Albon I think at the start,” Ricciardo explained.
“Then it was a bit of a mess with Alonso and Lewis and was trying to go here and there, and obviously Lewis was noticing the issue and I just kind of got a bit, whatever, in that situation and Seb [Vettel] got me.
“But we still obviously had Albon, which we thought that was a kind of critical one.
“A couple laps later, he sailed past on the straight.
“So I think while these tyres were fresh, that they could use the straight line speed and just make the gains they needed.
“We were just too slow on the straight, that was the biggest thing,” he added.
“I mean, a little bit unfortunate because after the issue yesterday it’s not the wing we wanted to run, but we were forced to, and we knew today it was probably going to hurt us.
“Think in clear air we were quicker, but we never had clear air because if I had it, if I didn’t have a slipstream someone would pass me and if I was right behind someone, even with DRS, we couldn’t make an overtake.”
McLaren had reverted Ricciardo to an older-spec rear wing after issues on Saturday meant the Spa-specific design could not be used.
Add in, according to Seidl, a lack of traction, and the writing was on the wall.
“Independent of that, I think in general for both cars today, doesn’t matter which downforce level, unfortunately with these conditions today we simply didn’t have the pace, struggling with traction for example out of Turn 1 especially and therefore we will never be in a position to overtake, even lost some positions, got overtaken, just not a good day for us.
“It was a surprise that we were lacking performance that much today,” he added.
“The lack of traction we have example out of Turn 1 meant we were pretty much stuck all the time, or vulnerable to get overtaken.
“Therefore we were never really in free air, which then I would say compromised performance or the lack of performance we had anyway, even more.”
While McLaren failed to score points in Belgium, constructors’ championship rivals Alpine had both its cars in the top 10.
The Enstone squad now sits fourth in that competition with a 20-point advantage over its Woking rivals.
Formula 1 now heads to the Dutch Grand Prix, a weekend that proved one of the worst of the season last year for McLaren.
Opening practice in Zandvoort begins on Friday.
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