Welcome Drivers!

This post is a continuation of the Constructor Deep Dive series we are currently working through. If you haven’t already, check out the deep dives that we have already done below.

• Williams Racing (Link)

• AlphaTauri (Link)

• Haas (Link)

• Aston Martin (Link)

• Alfa Romeo (Link)

Next on the list is McLaren, who finished 5th in the Constructors championship in 2022.

2022 Performance

As far as their expectations go, McLaren had a mediocre year in 2022. They have been trying to get back into championship contention for several years now and can’t get over the hump. In 2021 they were the clear front-runner of the midfield and it was not close. They took a step back in 2022. They didn’t get the new regulations right and potentially were a victim of a weaker PU supplied by Mercedes.

Lando Norris once again had a strong year at McLaren in a car that was not competitive with the top teams. He finished best of the rest in P7 of the drivers championship with 122 points to his name. He was also the only driver outside of the top 3 teams to score a podium last season. What makes this even more impressive is his teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who is now a Red Bull reserve driver, struggled to get to grips with the 2022 car and finished 11th in the drivers standings and only 37 points on the year. We have written a post on Daniel Ricciardo’s path to being a reserve driver and his 2024 prospects here.

McLaren ended the season P5, trailing Alpine by only 14 points to end the year. It was a disappointment given that they had the goal of making the move into the top 3. They would have likely finished P4 had Ricciardo converted more opportunities and the team recognized that and moved on from Daniel. They will be bringing in a rookie for the 2023 season and hope to reclaim the best of the rest and one day compete for championships again.

Looking Ahead to 2023

Leadership, Management & Partnerships

There are some new faces in the McLaren garage this year. Andreas Seidl, former McLaren team principal, left the team to join Sauber and help transition them into the 2026 regulation changes. McLaren has replaced Seidl with Andrea Stella, who is being promoted from his previous position as Racing Director.

Stella has come out and said the team is optimistic over their chances this year and are looking to buck the trend of their downward slide in the standings last year. McLaren CEO Zak Brown has also expressed his excitement for the upcoming season and is ready to see the young McLaren driving pair in action.

The MCL60 will be the first car produced under Stella and the expectations will be high in a year where McLaren hopes to regain the ground they lost to their rivals in 2022. Stella has also stated from a performance perspective they are remaining realistic in the short-term. They are waiting to see how things shake out in Bahrain testing that starts February 23rd.

Development

McLaren needs to take a big step forward in development if they intend on being competitive in 2022. It is hard to say if it was the car’s performance last year or the lack of production in Daniel. Obviously McLaren would like to do a lot more than 1 podium finish in a season but had Daniel scored half the points Lando did they would have easily been P4. Regardless, P4 is not the goal for McLaren and they will need to match the performance levels of the top 3 teams to feel satisfied.

As we have seen with many other teams on the grid, McLaren appears to be designing their car with some similar traits to last year’s Red Bull. The side pods specifically look like they were taken right off the RB18 car from last year. The goal here is primarily to attempt at working the underfloor airflow more efficiently. It will be tough to tell how much performance is gained from this until all of the cars hit the track in testing.

In addition to the bodywork changes the inlet vanes on the front of the car have been completely remodeled. It looks like they have changed the angle of the inlets with the intent of gaining downforce while at the same time optimizing balance through a corner. This is especially hard with the ground effect cars since a lot less downforce is produced when the cars are not moving at high speeds.

McLaren has already come out and said that they are not fully satisfied with the MCL60 at this point in time. They are hoping that some early season upgrades get them where they would like to be. Stella has already tried to tame expectations for the early races of the season by saying fans should not be expecting too much in the beginning of the year.

Stella went on to say that they evaluated their performance last year and found multiple areas of improvement. He continued to say that they feel like almost all of these areas of improvement have been addressed, most of them being aerodynamic related. Overall they are optimistic that the car is heading in the right direction and they will improve in 2023.

Drivers

Fortunately for Mclaren, they have one of the most talented drivers on the grid in Lando Norris. He has consistently outperformed in a lesser-caliber car than the top teams. As mentioned earlier, he was the only driver outside the top 3 teams to achieve a podium this season. He is the face of the team and Zak Brown is doing everything he can to keep Lando happy long-term.

Brown has acknowledged that if they can’t produce a car that can compete with the top teams then there is a good chance they could lose Lando to their rivals. McLaren and Lando are currently on a journey to win a championship together but if that does not materialize soon Lando may want to move on. Despite these concerns, Lando has maintained his commitment to McLaren and has expressed his desire to help the team return to the top of the grid.

Lando will be joined by rookie Oscar Piastri this season. It was originally thought that Piastri would be joining the Apline squad (Alpine even came out publically stating it on social media) but he ended up deciding to join McLaren. The fact that there was a dispute over Piastri shows just how talented teams in F1 think he is.

Piastri won the F3 championship and when he moved up to F2 he won that championship as well. He joins the likes of Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Nico Roseberg, Nico Hulkenberg and Charles Leclerc as the only drivers to win the F2 championship in their rookie season. He is the only driver to win 3 consecutive F1 feeder championships (he won the Formula Renault championship in 2019).

Safe to say that McLaren have one of the best young lineups on the grid. They will need to provide their drivers with a worthy car. If they can do that, the sky is the limit for the Woking team. If not, we may see some departures in the near future.

2023 Predictions

We think the top of the midfield will be incredibly competitive this season. McLaren will have their sights set on the top teams but they should also be looking at the likes of Alpine and potentially Aston Martin (who have shown extreme confidence in their AMR23). We do think McLaren will take back the best of the rest title this season but that is as far as they will go. The top teams are still so far ahead and there is too much ground to be made up in one season.

If they are still unable to get their development right then we see them dropping as low as P6. We think other teams will be making solid progress on their packages so if McLaren has another misstep this year could be another ugly season. We do think that McLaren have the drivers, well at least one driver, to overcome a poor package and still convert point scoring opportunities. The same can’t be said with as much conviction about the other midfield teams.

Upcoming Posts and Reader Feedback

Our next post will be a continuation of the deep dives into each team for their 2023 outlook. We will try to get out one a day considering we have limited time before the pre-season testing starts in late February.

If you like the post please subscribe to the newsletter. We try to publish 2-3 articles a week and will be doing in-depth breakdowns as the season gets going. Feel free to leave any comments or recommendations on topics you would like to be covered. Thanks for reading!