Formula 1 Preseason Report #6 – McLaren

Unfortunately, it looks to be more of the same for McLaren in 2023, as it still waits for what it hopes will be construction of a game-changing wind tunnel to be completed.

While the start of the Formula One season coming soon, we’re already in preseason mode here at AutoRacingDigest.com.

Leading up to the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix (March 3-5), our exceptional F1 expert, Gregg Fielding, will break down each of the 10 teams that will take part in the global chase for the championship. The focus of today's episode is McLaren (with four more teams still to come).

Here’s the teams we’ve covered thus far:

* Williams Racing

* AlphaTauri

* Haas F1 Team

* Aston Martin

* Alfa Romeo

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In a small town in the United Kingdom, people tell tales of a mythical creature that no one has seen, but for years has been felt as an unseen presence, and many await the day that it finally emerges to wreak its horrible vengeance.

The town is called Woking and the creature is the still-in-development McLaren wind tunnel. Since it was first planned four years ago, Zak Brown and the other McLaren higher-ups have regularly made statements to the effect of “well, this might not be our year, but once we get our wind tunnel up and running . . .”

What could be considered the current McLaren era started in 2019, when a frustrated Fernando Alonso went on F1 sabbatical after four seasons with the team that saw only finishes in the bottom half of the standings, and was replaced by up-and-comer Lando Norris.

At the same time, the team also parted ways with driver Stoffel Vandoorne, who in his three years under the McLaren banner had never shown he was in the same class with Alonso and was replaced by Carlos Sainz, who had found himself jobless after Renault had secured the services of Daniel Ricciardo.

After moving up to fourth in the standings that year and third in 2020, optimism was high that the team could regain the elite status it had held though much of its Formula 1 existence - if not immediately then certainly when the all-new car regulations shuffled the deck in 2022.

As long as they could just finish that darn wind tunnel . . . !!!

But the pandemic delayed construction, and the team fell back to fourth in 2021. And while the engineering team continues to wait for the day that they can stop renting time at Toyota’s outdated wind tunnel facility, McLaren finds itself coming off something of a muted year in 2022.

Norris was able to outperform what was expected from the car, generally managing to get himself into the final segment of qualifying (although not having the speed to battle with the top three teams for the front spots), and scoring points in a very impressive 17 of 22 races. But again, the speed was not there to be a real threat to the front, as he was only able to score a single podium (rain-assisted), along with one fourth and one fifth.

After the team was able to get Ricciardo to again take a job formerly occupied by Sainz in 2021, the Australian had a disastrous year in 2022. While the deficit to his teammate in his first year was waved off as a period of getting used to the car, the amount of time spent in the nether regions of the field during his sophomore effort was an inexplicable failure of epic proportions.

While Norris began to churn out multiple point-paying finishes early in the season, Riccardo found himself either just breaking into the scoring due to circumstances, or more often being completely out of contention.

By the time the summer break rolled around, the team and boss Zak Brown had seen enough. After a failed attempt to grab top IndyCar driver Alex Palou from Chip Ganassi for the McLaren IndyCar team, Brown was more successful in a similar move which led to the signing of hot Formula 1 prospect Oscar Piastri, who Alpine had just announced was going to join their team in 2023.

The dispute brought considerable friction between the two organizations, who had once been linked under something of a partnership but now were rivals who occupied similar positions in the sport’s hierarchy. Ricciardo finally rebounded with some decent results in three of the last six races, but not in time to grab a seat in the game of musical chairs that set the drivers for the 2023 grid and will now be spending his time this year in the role of reserve driver and planning his future.

So, with what they hope are two top young drivers, but still no wind tunnel (which they hope will be at least partially in play for 2024), McLaren faces 2023 once again with tempered expectations. They’ll also have a new race day leader, after Andreas Seidl left to pursue the Audi-supported future at Alfa Romeo. He’ll be replaced by Andrea Stella, who will take the Team Principal nameplate after being promoted from Racing Director.

In an interview with ESPN, Brown said he feels the team is “two or three years away from competing”. Which coincides with the current projections on the wind tunnel, expected to be operational sometime this year but not having a full impact until 2025.

A priority for the team will be keeping Norris happy, as the British driver has been rumored to be on Mercedes' radar should his countryman Lewis Hamilton decide to retire. Hamilton has thus far made no indication of any desire to stop, and it seems inconceivable that Mercedes would ever force out the most successful driver in the history of the sport, but the potential of adding Norris to their lineup must be at least in conversation behind the scenes at the Mercedes headquarters.

While the McLaren higher-ups might not be thrilled with the team’s position on the racetrack, master marketer Brown has certainly continued to do his magic on the sponsorship side, as the list of big-time corporate names fighting for space on the team’s cars continues to grow.

While the team’s livery may look something of a mess (particularly with the Google Chrome colors mixed in), the team is apparently now turning a profit, a word not normally associated with a sport that has expenses well in excess of $100 million dollars per team.

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2022 Results:

* Team finish: fifth place in constructor standings, 159 points scored, 14 points behind fourth.

Driver Results:

* Lando Norris: 7th Place in driver standings, 122 points scored, best finish: third (Imola)

* Daniel Ricciardo: 11th Place in driver standings, 37 points scored, best finish: fifth (Singapore)

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Predictions for 2023:

With its focus seemingly on the future, it’s hard to expect an up year from McLaren in 2023. While Piastri is highly regarded across the sport, it would be unfair to not give him the benefit of a period of rookie adjustment, especially considering the difficulties Ricciardo experienced transferring to the team.

McLaren has the drivers, the money, and the staff to be a championship contender – but not immediately. This year, its goal is set on repassing Alpine for fourth, but the French team looked to have the faster car of the two last year (at least when it was working properly) and seems unlikely to surrender that advantage this season.

So, I don’t see McLaren overtaking Alpine this year, and I think they’ll also lose out to the hard-charging Aston Martin, leaving them once again dropping back a position to finish sixth.

But have no fear, the wind tunnel is coming.

Isn’t it?