Results of the season: McLaren Racing – all the news of Formula 1 2022

Expectations were much higher, but Zach Brown’s aspirations don’t always match reality. Fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship is the worst result in four years…

Zach Brown has long begged Daniel Ricciardo to go to McLaren. The American thought the smiling Aussie was a perfect fit for the team’s new image, which brought papaya orange colors back to the cars, and no one doubted his speed.

The Australian disagreed for a long time – initially McLaren’s results left something to be desired and he switched to Renault, having lost there for two years. Then Zach again offered Riccardo to join his team – and Daniel listened to the persuasion.

In the end, nothing happened here either. The team couldn’t provide him with a car that would go “on rails” like in Red Bull, and Daniel couldn’t adapt to the existing car. And fifth place in the constructors’ championship is direct evidence of this crisis.

Lando Norris, who is not that demanding of the car, dominated the season ahead of his partner in twenty qualifying out of 22, earning 122 points for the season to Riccardo’s 37. In the individual classification, Lando came seventh – the best of the rest and only lost to the riders of the three strongest teams. The same goal – fourth place in the constructors’ championship – had been set in the team before the start of the season, but it was not possible to achieve it with one car. About fifteen points were missing.

Problems, of course, were not alone and not so much in Daniel. The car proved difficult to drive and adjust, and problems with the brakes that occurred during testing and in the first race threw the team back unexpectedly.

Usually such problems are relatively easy to fix, but not in 2022, when the car was rebuilt. Team boss Andreas Seidl later admitted that McLaren did not have the technical resources to handle multiple tasks simultaneously. The existing resources had to be switched to the brakes, which eventually even affected the 2023 car – development could not start as early as planned by the team.

When developing the MCL36, the engineers focused on a certain level of chassis efficiency, perhaps even achieved, only the rivals clearly raised the bar.

The lack of downforce meant the McLaren MCL36 was inferior in slow corners, and there was also a lack of mechanical grip, which affected work with rubber, which could not be warmed up until the start of the fast lap in qualifying. It turned out to be a vicious circle, from which it was not easy to get out.

Not without a common problem with the extra weight of the car. McLaren even reduced the volume of the drinking bottle. McLaren prepared an extensive update for the Spanish Grand Prix, but these new items did not affect the balance of power.

The best for the team were the races in Imola and Singapore, which brought 22 points each. Interestingly, Alpine’s direct rivals McLaren, with whom the British team battled hard all year for fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship, failed to earn any points in this Grand Prix.

At Imola, Norris and Ricciardo finished fifth and sixth in the sprint, while Lando took the podium in the race. In Singapore, the McLaren drivers finished fourth and fifth.

It seemed that fourth place would go to McLaren at the end of the season, but everything was decided by the last five Grand Prix – Alpine took 48 points, McLaren – thirty – and the British team dropped to fifth place.

Lando Norris had an almost flawless season, receiving critical acclaim from the team management. It worked great with rubber, was fast, stable and almost never made mistakes. He can safely record the 2022 season as an asset.

Explaining his problems, Ricciardo said the team was too focused on finding the reasons for his lagging behind, constantly experimenting with settings and adjusting his flying style. This caused the driver to lose confidence in the car and when he decided to attack actively, it led to crashes.

Daniel Ricciardo: “I don’t blame anyone, but we analyzed too many bad weekends and then got stuck on how to change the style of drivers or settings. This eventually led to a dead end. However, it is far from a fact that I would have traveled through Lando without it. I still don’t understand how to drive this car. And I admit it exposed my weaknesses.

You can only compete in Formula 1 at the highest possible level if you have confidence in the car. What happens if I brake five meters too late? If you don’t have an answer to this question for every brake application, you will lose confidence at some point.

Previously, when I went out on fresh tires with almost empty tanks in qualifying, I had no doubt that I could brake calmly five meters later. For some reason it wasn’t always like that at McLaren.”

Rumors of wanting to replace Riccardo appeared as early as April, but when it came to replacement after the current contract expires, the driver and team publicly expressed full confidence that the Australian would stay until the end of 2023. McLaren even issued an official statement that there would be no change, but then they took back their words.

On July 23, Andreas Seidl announced that the team had no plans to refuse Riccardo’s services, on August 24, the team and the driver confirmed the early termination of the contract at the end of the season, and on September 2, it was announced that Daniel was replaced by a young compatriot Oscar Piastri.

Zack Brown called the decision to end the partnership with Riccardo one of the most difficult of his career: “We have decided to leave because we have not achieved the desired results in a year and a half. We did our best, we love Daniel and we still enjoy working with him, but in business the results are important, which we never got, although we tried everything.

Piastri’s career in the youth series was even brighter than that of Norris – the Australian at the first attempt and consecutive titles in Formula Renault, Formula 3 and Formula 2.

His move to Formula 1 in 2022 was prevented by an Alpine contract with Fernando Alonso, but in the summer the Australian behind Alpine agreed with McLaren.

It will be very interesting to see the battle of McLaren teammates in 2023!

After the end of the season, team leader Andreas Seidl also left, attracted by the opportunity to lead the project for Audi to enter Formula 1.

McLaren chief executive Zach Brown said Andreas had given him advance notice of plans to join Sauber/Audi, but only in 2025 after his McLaren contract expired. However, when word got out about Frederick Vasseur’s transfer from Sauber to Ferrari, Seidl Brown asked for early termination of the contract, and Zach went to meet him.

In 2023, former race director Andrea Stella, a 51-year-old Italian who began his career at Ferrari in Michael Schumacher’s race engineering group and then worked as a race engineer for Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso, will become the team principal. Stella is one of the few recent examples of such brilliant career development, I really want him to succeed.