F1 News: McLaren Reveals Why They Struggled So Much in 2022 Season

"There's some aspects of our car that don’t mitigate well"

McLaren's new team principal, Andrea Stella, has reflected on why the team struggled so much during the 2022 season. 

Stella explained during an interview that he thinks they did not adjust to the new 18-inch Pirelli tyres as well as the other teams. The 18-inch tyres were introduced in 2022, replacing the previous 13-inch tyres. The new tyres came in along with the new aerodynamic rules.

It was announced shortly after the end of the 2022 season that former team principal Andreas Seidl would be leaving the team and taking Frederic Vasseur's position at Sauber. Stella was then promoted from McLaren's racing director to team principal.

As quoted by Motorsport.com, Stella talked about the teams 2022 struggles:

“Since their [the tyres] introduction, they gave relatively sharp behaviour of the car with the strong front tyres when the car is in a straight line.” 

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Because the front tyres are so powerful. But then the more you kind of add the steering angle on the front tyres, the more they decay, and at some stage, they decay quite rapidly.

Stella continued:

“So this is the same for everyone. I think even when you see the Pirelli reports, which talk about the balance for everyone, they normally resemble the same balance that is commented by our drivers.

“Then on top of the tyres, you add the car characteristics that kind of mitigate the underlying fundamental behaviour of the tyres. And depending on how strong this mitigation element is coming from the car, the more you can be able to exploit the available grip.

“I think, definitely, there’s some aspects of our car that don’t mitigate well this underlying behaviour of the tyres. But ultimately, I think it’s the same for everyone.”

It was clear to see from the performance of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo throughout the season that they both adjusted differently to the car. Stella added:

“There’s a point at which there’s the drivers as well, they play a role in adapting to this. And we have seen in this couple of years that certainly for Daniel, the window in which he is comfortable, is slightly narrower than Lando, let’s say.

“So these characteristics that I described before, affected his performance. When they don’t show up that much I think Daniel is actually quite okay, from a performance point of view. While when these characteristics are pronounced, for whatever reasons, then I think this affects his performance.

“And what we have seen is that Lando is a slightly more capable of sort of dealing with that. So the fundamental element is tyres, the car characteristic mitigate it, and then you have the drivers on top of it that play a further role.”