McLaren really appreciates the complexity of the issues

The first points of the season, earned by Lando Norris last weekend, were probably some kind of consolation for McLaren fans, but not for the team itself: they greatly appreciate the complexity of the situation.

This is McLaren’s worst start to the season since 2017, with just six points from the first two races. And if last season at least one car from the team made it to the final of qualifying, we haven’t seen this in 2022.

McLaren faces two main tasks: the race team, together with the drivers, must try to reach the maximum and make the most of every opportunity, even in such a difficult situation, and the specialists at the Woking base must figure out the shortcomings of the MCL36 car and find the best way to fix them.

Other teams that have not had the best start to the season, such as Mercedes and Aston Martin, are making it clear that they have to apply settings that do not allow them to reach their full potential. The reason for the forced compromise is the destabilization of the car at high speeds, the same buildup that manifested itself during the pre-season tests, associated with the peculiarities of the aerodynamics, ie with ground effect.

As soon as we manage to deal with this phenomenon, the speed should increase. But it seems that in the case of McLaren the problem is different: During the development of the MCL36, the team’s engineers focused on a certain level of chassis efficiency, which may have even been achieved, only the rivals clearly raised the bar.

“In the end we have to admit that other teams have done better off-season,” said team principal Andreas Seidl. “That explains why we are in this position. We quickly recognized this within the team.

It is important to understand this very well and try to use dissatisfaction with yourself, translate it into usable energy and recoup as quickly as possible.

McLaren says the car lacks the aerodynamic efficiency and mechanical traction that the chassis offers, but they prefer not to specify what went wrong while building the chassis. Either the team failed to achieve the required level of downforce, or this level was not high enough initially, which only manifested itself when compared to rivals’ technique.

The situation was further complicated by the need for a fire service to correct deficiencies, which resulted in tests in Bahrain regularly having problems with brakes overheating.

As a result, McLaren had to devote resources to solving this problem, rather than directly looking for speed reserves. As a result, the MCL36 is most likely currently firmly registered in the second half of the pack and it is unlikely that the team will be able to claim high results until the car is significantly improved.

Of course Lando Norris’ 7th place in Saudi Arabia is reason for cautious optimism, but McLaren prefers not to flatter itself. On the one hand, Andreas Seidl noted that the team “had managed to make up for what was lost in the tests” in Bahrain, and make greater use of the machine’s potential, on the other hand, it is possibly the point is mainly in the configuration of the fast track in Jeddah, which was suitable MCL36 is much better than the Bahraini.

“There is a lot of work to be done, but so far there has been little positive. But if we have to perform on tracks that are close to the characteristics of the Saudis, we can expect to be more competitive there,” Norris said. “But I’m not sure we will perform well on relatively slow tracks.”

Of course, the team is also encouraged by Norris’ result and the fact that Daniel Ricciardo was also able to earn points, but he was out of luck – the technique let him down.

It should be understood, however, that McLaren was helped in Jeddah by the convergence of several cars that also claimed a top ten spot – at least Valtteri Bottas’ Alfa Romeo, Fernando Alonso’s Alpine and Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri. The team is fully aware of this report and is well aware that the desired level of result that everyone expects from McLaren is still a long way off.