McLaren technical director James Key explains the aftermath of the failed start to the season as well as the upgrade plan – On a par with Mercedes in Hungary?
McLaren says it is still feeling the “aftershock” of the difficult start to the 2022 Formula One season in Bahrain, which locked the team into its current development cycle.
The Woking-based team began the 2022 season with a setback, struggling with brake problems at the final pre-season test in Bahrain and failing to find the pace at the opening race in Sachir.
The extent of the problems prompted McLaren to put in place a recovery plan to work its way back to the top of the midfield. At least it seems to have worked, as the team is battling with Alpine for fourth place in the constructors’ championship.
McLaren caught in update plan?
One of the backdrops to this plan, however, was that McLaren opted for a series of staggered major updates rather than consistently bringing new parts to each race.
And this meant that McLaren were often unable to keep up with their rivals, who made a leap in performance at each race when new parts arrived.
On McLaren’s decision-making process to opt for fewer but bigger upgrades, technical director James Key explains that things were set in stone after the events of the first race.
“To be quite honest, when you have a shocker like Bahrain, you have to make a plan,” Key says. “When you make a plan, you have to steer everything in a certain direction because it’s very difficult to change a plan. “
Engineering chief Key hints: Would like to have more freedom
“It’s always the same with every team I’ve been with: if you have a good start to the season, you have more freedom. When you have a shock, you think, ‘My God, are we really standing there?” and maybe that’s what we thought.”
“Fortunately it wasn’t like that, but it could have been. So you have to say, ‘Okay, here’s what we’re going to do, and at these races we’re going to make bigger steps’. And this is still kind of the effect of that.”
“I think when you can see something through, it’s definitely easier and more efficient for the workforce. But this is kind of an aftershock of the first race. It also gives everyone a structure for the development plan and clear deadlines, and I think the team appreciates that as well. I’d like to be more random, but that’s the way it looks at the moment. “
Key: “Were already faster than Mercedes in Monaco “
Key suggests that the fluctuations in form between teams – McLaren has had races where it has been at the top of the midfield and others where it has been more difficult – could be explained by competitors not keeping up with updates.
That’s why he wasn’t going to get too excited about Lando Norris managing to split the Mercedes in qualifying in France last weekend.
“We have a very short memory in this sport,” Key added. “We were faster than Mercedes in Monaco, for example. Then a month or two later it’s, ‘Wow, you’re on a Mercedes level.'”
“We have done this before. But in the time in between, we’ve also had some really bad races. The reality is that hopefully we’ve taken a small step forward.”
“People bring upgrades at different times. I think Alpine had one for Silverstone, for example. So we had a couple of races with an older car and then we brought something. I think we can expect the balance of power to swing back and forth a little bit as we go along. “
France update has met expectations
Although Norris was unable to match his strong qualifying performance in the race at Paul Ricard, Key believes the team simply needs more time to understand the package better.
“Basically, for the most part, it has delivered what we thought it would,” he says. “We’re still analysing the data, but the most important thing is that it has given us a step forward. We got a better sense of what was really important.”
“Now we have to use it and work with it to see if we can get something more out of it and learn on different tracks. One of the problems we had this year was that it was up and down depending on the type of track.”
“We have to see if we can keep up with Mercedes in Hungary, although I wouldn’t expect us to. But we definitely need to take a step forward, maybe to where we were in Canada or Baku, for example. “
