Throughout the 2021 season, Ferrari and McLaren were regularly scrapping over the same piece of tarmac as they battled for third in the standings.
At 2022’s opener, the only time Ferrari and McLaren shared the same space was when the red cars were putting a lap on their papaya counterparts. While Ferrari kick-started Formula 1’s new era with pole position and a 1-2 finish, McLaren slumped to the rear of the field and didn’t get remotely near the points.
Lando Norris qualified 13th with Daniel Ricciardo 18th, and in the race they finished 14th and 15th out of the 17 finishers. Their finishing positions were aided by the late exists of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez
There were a few extenuating circumstances.
McLaren’s preseason program was disrupted by Ricciardo’s Covid-enforced absence. Then there was a nagging an issue with brake cooling, for which revised parts were flown out for Bahrain. That meant its practice plans were amended and restricted.
It also started both drivers on the medium tires, rather than softs, a decision that had creative intentions but proved to be counterproductive. The positions lost off the line due to the medium’s less grip were not regained when rivals encountered the soft tires’ higher degradation. McLaren’s drivers also had to cool the cars more than anticipated.
Lando Norris, who finished sixth in the 2021 F1 Drivers’ Championship, finished a disappointing 15th in Bahrain.
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But at the root of the issue was simply a lack of speed. Both drivers spent spells of the race in last place, neither completed a lap higher than 13th, and both were lapped just after mid-distance.
“This is where we are, quite simply, we just have to get a little bit used to it now,” said Norris straight after the race, who was putting a brave face on the situation. “We just haven’t got it right at the minute. We’re a long, long way off, not just a little bit, a long way. We’ve got to start fresh, try and figure some things out, try and find solutions.”
Norris’ comments were made in the emotional immediacy of the Grand Prix but his words suggested that McLaren did not regard its Bahrain slump as a one-off.
“I still believe some tracks will be better for us,” Norris said. “I’m hoping this is as bad as it gets, it might not be, could be; there’s a lot of time, we still have a whole season of development and figuring things out, but it’s not easy to do so. I think once we figure out what’s going on and what’s wrong then it’s all about implementing it, bringing upgrades and bringing those parts to the car. The figuring out is the hard part.”
On whether he was braced for more pain Norris said that he was “expecting pain, and I think everyone needs to know there’s probably going to be a bit of pain. As McLaren, and myself, we expect a lot more, but it’s not what we have at the minute.”
Norris conceded that McLaren’s design concept “might be” the reason for its troubles and suggested it was pure downforce that was lacking.
During the Grand Prix itself, Norris was informed of Mercedes’ approach after fitting its cars with new tires, of how George Russell went too hard but struggled and how Lewis Hamilton eased in the compound and fared better.
“Yeah confirm,” Norris said. “They also have 100 points more downforce.”
“We have like seconds to find,” Norris said post-race. “We have to make the most of the car we have, whether it is for 10th, 15th or 18th.
“We’re a long way down on downforce, the handling therefore is very poor, it’s a tricky car and tricky tires to optimize and when you just don’t have the downforce you can’t get the tires working well and just can’ t get everything in a good window, you’re understeering, you’re oversteering. There’s just a lot more things going on, I think that’s the problem, we just need less things going on, we need more rear, more front, it’s just downforce really. Sounds simple but it is obviously complicated to figure it out.”
Ricciardo’s encouragement came through simply reaching the checkered flag, in order to learn more about the MCL36, but admitted the situation was rough.
“Overall, we still have I think a few more weaknesses than strengths,” Ricciardo said. “We’d love to be up on the podium, but we’re a long way from that.
It appears that the McLaren crew will have its hand full this season in trying to repeat the team’s successes of 2021.
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“I don’t think it’s going to be an overnight fix, for sure it’s going to take a little bit of time I guess, but we’re still so early in the development of these cars and understanding, so maybe in a couple of races time we find a set-up that works well with the car. There’s still optimism that it might be quicker than we think but knowing Formula 1 I think it’ll take some work to find the lap time we need.”
Team principal Andreas Seidl conceded that Bahrain’s layout – slow-speed sections punctuated by lengthy straights – “has exposed us to the weaknesses our package is having” but asserted that “it is obviously our ambition to have a competitive car on all kinds of track layouts .”
“It is clear that, okay, the positive side is we managed with two cars to finally do a race distance where we could try different tire compounds and hopefully this gives us more learnings which we can benefit from already next weekend in Jeddah, it is a different track layout as well.
“But independent of that it is clear we have a lack of performance and that’s where we will work really hard to understand why that is. I am absolutely confident that we can quickly switch this pain or disappointment into focus and commitment within the team, with all the talents we have onboard as well, to get out of this situation as quickly as possible.”
“Overall, we still have I think a few more weaknesses than strengths.”
The issue for McLaren in gaining learning and understanding is that the benchmark is ever evolving as its nine opponents are also slick teams that are riding the development train; no-one sits still in Formula 1 and McLaren is starting behind the curve.
It is also important to underline that one swallow doesn’t make a summer. There’s still eight months and 22 grands prix left to run, and McLaren has the ability and resource to turn the situation around.
But after Bahrain McLaren is the team that is Formula 1’s biggest surprise, and not in a positive way.
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