McLaren had a good enough season but it was a slip from their performance in 2021 where they scored many podiums and won at Monza. This season saw no wins plus only one podium coupled with the issues Daniel Ricciardo faced throughout the campaign. Team boss Andreas Seidl takes up the story
Team season:
“The better you start the season, the easier it is usually. The 2 biggest challenges for us this season, definitely the difficult start to the season with the brake issues. So we were not at the level we wanted to be in terms of performance, we were on the back foot”.
“The second biggest challenge was…the situation we were in with Daniel together with Daniel. At the same time it was great to see how the team was dealing with the situation at the beginning of the season and focusing on how to get out of this issue as quickly as possible and seeing how we kept it up in the cars throughput the year and got back into this battle for P4 because we haven’t forgotten that we started the season at the end of the field in Bahrain”.
“For me it was also great to see how Daniel was dealing with the difficult situation that we made by deciding to split at the end of the season. I think he showed that he was a world class character. It was not easy for him in terms of the decision to take the team apart which we navigate and in the end it is a human sport and a team sport but the drivers play an important role as well.I had had a lot of dialogue with Daniel as well at any stage of the decision making. I’m very happy that in the end we managed to finish the season together in style and still be in a position to have a laugh together and share a beer and have dinner which was very important to me and that’s a positive outcome as well for me from this season”.
“And yeah the season clearly showed us as well that we still have weaknesses within the team that we still need to address which is positive too because it helps us to make decisions in terms of the next steps as a team, getting the infrastructure in place next year. So overall I still see that the team is moving in the right direction and that is very important to me”.
“One special highlight I want to mention is the topic of pit stops which was a challenging topic for us over the last three or four years and it is also a good example where we could show this year thanks to great cooperation between people in that project which is the engineering side back home and the production side back home, the race team out here which is the drivers as well. We can actually battle with the best ones as well in the sport in that aspect and it’s important to celebrate highlights like this because it gives you confidence as a team that it’s not impossible to get to where these top teams are at the moment. That’s a quick summary from my point of view of the season”.
PATO O’Ward and Colton Herta
“Regarding PATO, in the end we did just one run here and just confirms what we have seen the testing we have seen with our car and the testing we did with him last year in Abu Dhabi. He did exactly the job that we wanted, which was to contribute to the test programme that we usually have on a Friday in order to make sure you have the right choices for the rest of the weekend and so I was very pleased with that. In terms of next steps, it’s something we will gather over winter. What we will do there in the future with all the guys we had in our cars this year, at the same time it’s also clear that our main focus on the next month is on Oscar and Lando. We want to make sure we hit the season strong in Bahrain next year”.
Battle with Alpine.
“First of all regarding this season, in the end of you finish the season in P5, that’s the position you deserve to be in and it’s always a fair reflection of where you have been throughout the season and we simply need to acknowledge that Alpine did a better job than us and we simply need to congratulate them on the good job they together with Fernando and Esteban”.
“In terms of expectations for next year, as you guys know I always like to raise the view of the standards of the team. We know we still have big deficits especially on the infrastructure side. For the development of next years car, the wind tunnel will only be finished by middle of next year as will our new driving simulator, along with all the updates on our infrastructure, we will only be finished by the middle of next year on the manufacturing side. That means that teams that have been finishing ahead of us in the constructors championship this year, let us say that even teams who are behind us at the moment but are using the state of the art infrastructure, like Sauber, like Aston Martin is using in this years wind tunnel, if they do the same job as us, together with their drivers they face a realistic chance of finishing ahead of us because we simply have limitations”.
“At the same time we are racing guys and we obviously try to work as hard as possible in order to shortcut the journey we are in or to do a better job in order to still be ahead together with Lando and Oscar and that will be the mission again next year. At the same time, the positive thing is that we know all these steps we have to make and all these deficits we have to overcome are what keep us going and focused on making these final steps but obviously with a realistic timeline”.
Podiums 2022
“First of all if we just look at ourselves it is obviously one of the positives that we were the only team to score a podium apart from the top three teams, it’s obviously a positive outcome and that Lando could score P7 which means he obviously was the best of the non Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes drivers which shows again he was doing an impressive season even if the highlight results have not been there because he did not have the car this year”.
“In terms of the pecking order this year and also the gap between the top three teams and the rest, to be honest from my point of view I guess and I said towards the end of last season, for me it is not a surprise what I have seen especially when you are going to a new era of Formula One with completely new technical regulations, the teams that have the best infrastructure that had unlimited money in the past, also the teams that have the best available tools and methodology in place, there is no reason for this, even more reason that they have to something completely different from scratch that they create an even bigger advantage for themselves by using everything that they have in place and therefore it wasn’t a surprise what I have seen this season from my point of view”.
“At the same time I am absolutely convinced that having a budget cap now in place and having stability on the regulations side that over time performance will come closer together between all the teams in Formula One and the sport will become better and better”.
Concepts for 2023:
“I guess we can clearly see there is a trend in the pit Lane now where everyone is heading now. Normally you look at the best at, all he best team, and what is in place in the course of the season, potential direction for yourselves also. Therefore I would expect the majority of the paddock to head towards that direction next year”.
“We were pretty happy with the steps we could take as a team this year with the development side. That brought us back into this battle with Alpine for P4 in the championship”.
Season 2022:
“The most important thing when I look at the season is when you look at the team and take a step forward and the team overall which is a big organisation and a complex challenge that we are also moving in the right direction because there are a lot of different topics within the team back home or on the racing side that we made steps forward plus at the same time we clearly saw where we had weaknesses in the team with the car this year that we have to address which guarantees the next steps moving forward and defines a positive season for us”.
“We made important progress in our projects which is important for next year. It was an important year for the team to do with the financial regulations and the budget cap and the understanding where we can find further synergies or efficiencies to free up more money for our performance. Eg is that we launched an initiative a few weeks ago to hire more engineers especially when we had these issues at the start of the season where we had to solve different subjects, like the brake issue. The concept work for next years car saw us being quite limited in terms of resources. That’s why I say it was still a successful season”.
Daniel Ricciardo’s performance and losing 4th place owing to same.:
“I’m moved away from blaming Daniel. In the end up there as well is my responsibility to get to work together with Daniel in the way we were all hoping for. That in the end is part of not scoring the points as a team that you wanted to score that you would have scored. It is something that we will try to address and improve for next year”.