still made it to qNUMBER_TOKEN five times out of six between them during the triple header the real problem is they were never at the head of the midfield group mclaren had the fifth fastest car overall in each of the three events that comprised the triple header ferrari's pace has generally been stronger than mclaren since the introduction of its upgraded hybrid system but in all three events alpha towering driver pierre gasly was quicker than the best of the mclarens in qualifying and in qatar alpine was a shock interloper too fernando alonso was fifth fastest in qualifying and converted that into third in the race ferrari alfertari and mclaren's performance average for the season is similar with less than NUMBER_TOKEN percent covering the trio so it's no surprise to see the swings between the three over the triple header alpine's interference was more puzzling but it seemed that his car simply worked well at lasalle meanwhile mclaren struggled particularly in brazil and qatar with the long medium speed corners playing to the weaknesses of a car that has a high peak downforce level but struggles for balance on such configurations there's much more to come on what's going on at mclaren but before we get to that we just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who has subscribed to our channel so far it means a lot to us and if you'd like to keep up with everything that we're doing here at the race consider hitting that button at any time to join the team while mclaren's underlying pace across the triple header was nothing special by its standards its return of four points all taken by norris was down to an unfortunate combination of circumstances ricardo and norris suffered two collisions during the last three races both of which cost potential top five finishes the first was ricardo's in mexico from seventh on the grid he made a good start and was up with the leaders approaching term one he briefly had a tentative grip on fourth place but hit bottas as the mercedes driver took the apex at term one a pit stop for a broken front wing condemned ricardo to what he described as a sad NUMBER_TOKEN odd laps further compromised by floor damage picked up when williams driver george russell hit him in a separate opening lap incident norris was not a factor in that race because he had to take a back of the grid penalty for taking a new vNUMBER_TOKEN turbo and mguk and he did a good job to recover to NUMBER_TOKENth his own costly mishap happened at the following racer into lagos though norris made a good start from fifth and went to the right of carlos science's ferrari but norris then moved back across to the left a little too early with his left rear hitting science's front right the result was a puncture that forced the first lap pit stop norris recovered to NUMBER_TOKENth again which was a good performance but it fell far short of what it could have been ricardo was running eighth into lagos and potentially on a one-stop strategy that could have allowed him to finish as high as fifth ahead of both ferrari drivers but he retired because a cracked pipe caused an issue with the power unit the costliest misfortune came in qatar
START_INTERACTION_TOKEN there's much more to come on what's going on at mclaren but before we get to that we just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who has subscribed to our channel so far it means a lot to us and if you'd like to keep up with everything that we're doing here at the race consider hitting that button at any time to join the team END_INTERACTION_TOKEN