According to McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl, McLaren had a frustrating and difficult experience during the 2022 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix. The team, which had been tipped to be a contender in Barcelona’s testing, was not even in contention for points at Sahkir.
The Woking-based team has failed to discover a solution to their pace troubles, which began at the official pre-season test in Bahrain and were exacerbated by overheating brakes, a problem for which they stated they had a “interim” remedy for the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend.
Eventually, the team finished 14th with Daniel Ricciardo, who is still recovering from Covid, and 15th with Lando Norris, whose talents could not overcome the MCL36’s issues.
“As expected, after a difficult Friday and Saturday in Bahrain for us, today’s grand prix was a continuation of the issues we’re facing at present,” said team principal Andreas Seidl in the team report.
“We had to manage a lot of different parameters throughout the race, and that didn’t allow us to be competitive.
“Thanks to Lando and Daniel who battled hard all weekend together with the team here in Bahrain and back in Woking, who have put in an immense amount of work,” he added.
“This was a disappointing and painful experience for everyone within the team, and of course for all our great fans.”
“We are now analysing in detail why we’re not competitive and working as hard as we can to bring more performance to the car, as rapidly as possible.”
“In the meantime, hopefully all the learnings from today’s race, the first time we’ve completed a full race distance with this car, will help us prepare and be in a better position for next weekend,” Seidl concluded.
Daniel Ricciardo confessed that the Bahrain race was a challenge to himself to come back to form and make up for the mileage he lost in testing after getting infected with Covid-19.
“It sounds very simple, but the first objective today was to do the race distance and just build some knowledge in the car,” he said in the team’s press release.
“I think even just for myself, especially after the last week, just to get that kind of fitness in, was good.”
“We tried all three compounds of tyres, so there is plenty to feedback. I’m pretty clear where our weaknesses lay in the race.”
“So we’ll try to understand that and work on those. I think we had some strengths in some corners as well,” Ricciardo explained.
“So, we’ll just feedback everything we can to the team and obviously, we knew it was going to be a tricky day, but we got both cars home and have lots to look at.”
“We will now look ahead to a completely different track in Saudi Arabia to see what that brings,” the Ricciardo concluded.
Lando Norris also added that McLaren was a long way from where they wanted to be: “Not what we wanted at all; it was a very tough race.”
“We’re a long way from where we want to be and we’ve got work to do to make sure we’re working on every area possible and making the most of every race.”
“We gave it our all today, but it’s just not enough at the moment. We’ll look at all the data from the race today and see how we can improve for Saudi, as well as where we need to improve throughout the season.”
“We’ll do our very best next week to make the most of where we are,” Norris concluded.
Last year, the team that was battling Ferrari for third place in the Constructors’ Championship and lost had to witness their Red rivals capture a sensational 1-2 in Bahrain, with Charles Lerclerc winning the race and Carlos Sainz coming in second.
