After a steady improvement from its 2017 nadir, McLaren seemed poised to leap into the new regulations with a real chance of mixing it up for wins and podiums regularly again. The outlook after the first race is very, very different, however...
A Promising Start
When the MCL36 rolled out in Barcelona, the car apparently looked immediately stable on track, with the drivers able to attack corners more than most. The car had a decent amount of unique design features, including its suspension layout, sidepod design, and floor edge. Most notably, the car seemed to be the least affected by the now-infamous "porpoising" phenomenon, which causes cars to bounce up and down at high speed. This is generally caused by a repeated loss and gain of floor downforce at high speed, and can cause additional reliability concerns if it is too violent.
McLaren's car looked stable and composed, the team said that they were seeing more or less what they expected to see in terms of aero characteristics and performance, and seemed to be among the best prepared for the season ahead.
Warning Signs
After a relatively smooth first test in Spain, the team was tipped to be in the mix right at the sharp end of the grid, with Lando Norris even going as far to say that he did not want to be fastest, because it would raise expectations. But when the team rocked up to Bahrain for testing, it became clear very quickly that all was not well for the team in orange (sorry, erm, 'fluoro papaya').
Immediately people noticed that McLaren did not do any long running on the first day of testing, which seemed strange, but it's testing so teams do things differently than others. However, it became clear that the team was suffering from major front brake issues, where the front brakes would overheat so badly that they would cause parts surrounding them to get "crispy" as technical director James Key called it. The team was limited to running less than 10 laps at a time, as any more would cause the brakes to overheat too much. Team principal Andreas Seidl even stated that the team would not be able to complete a race distance with the car in its current configuration. Yikes.
To me, it is almost incomprehensible to think that a team like McLaren could miscalculate the brake cooling requirements so badly. If the brakes weren't being cooled enough, then the simplest fix is to just make the brake cooling ducts larger. This means more airflow to the brakes, at the cost of some downforce and drag, since you are essentially taking air that would be hitting the sidepods or floor and using it for cooling instead. By the final day of testing, the team had implemented a rudimentary fix, but it was clear that their issues were not fully solved. It seemed like increasing the brake duct size was not going to be enough to solve this problem, and that realistically they would need to redesign the entire front brake housing (sometimes referred to as the 'cake tin' due to its appearance).
This meant that McLaren headed into the first race with no definitive ideas about how their car would function over a race distance, if it could even complete a race distance.
A Wake-Up Call
Despite a shaky Bahrain test, which included Daniel Ricciardo missing out due to a positive COVID test, the general consensus was that the car was still quick. Trackside pundits noted that the car still looked good on track, and many still felt that the team would at least challenge the best of the rest, behind Ferrari and Red Bull, and possibly be close to Mercedes. In practice, the cars were not overwhelmingly fast, but it is not uncommon for teams to hide their true pace until the first qualifying session.
Qualifying, however, showed that the problems the team were facing were in fact very real. Daniel Ricciardo was eliminated in Q1, qualifying only 18th out of 20. Missing a whole test surely doesn't help, but he was beaten by Nico Hulkenberg in the Aston Martin, which Nico had not even driven before practice the day before. Norris, meanwhile, was not even able to make it into Q3 and ended up 13th, despite saying that he felt he maximized the car, and that the lap would have been good enough for the very front of the grid, providing the car was fast. Maybe the race would be better?
It was not. After lap 2, the two cars were 18th and 20th with Norris and Ricciardo, respectively. The team decided to gamble on strategy, opting to start on medium tires, rather than the soft tires like the rest of the field. This meant that they were inherently at a grip disadvantage at the start, but the team was hoping that as the soft tires wore down, the mediums would come good. However, the two drivers struggled to make any progress as the first stint wore on, not helped by what appeared to be fairly urgent engine cooling issues. Further questionable strategy calls, like using the hard tires which Mercedes had shown were clearly not great, meant that the two cars were easily lapped, and it's possible that only the late safety car from Pierre Gasly's burning AlphaTauri saved them from the embarrassment of being lapped twice by Ferrari, a team which McLaren had more or less been equal on pace with for the majority of 2021.
During the race, Norris remarked that the team was lacking "100 points of downforce" compared to Mercedes at least, and was audibly displeased with the state of the car. Who could blame him? 100 points of downforce is quite a lot, we are talking well over 1 second of lap time, and probably many, many months of aero development. Maybe even a full year's worth.
It was clear from the Bahrain race that there could be any number of problems contributing to their struggles; the track layout itself, the possible relative downfall of Mercedes' engines, a fundamental aerodynamic issue, the continued brake issues, etc. But to what degree are each of these plausible? Let's take a look at a few possible reasons or explanations for their struggles in the first race, and what could offer improvements.
Potential for Improvement
Track-to-Track Variation
McLaren has stated that Bahrain may very well be one of its worst tracks this season, as it is kind of an outlier in terms of layout and circuit characteristics. It has long straights followed by slow corners, and a very abrasive track surface. McLaren's car appears to be suffering the most with slow corners (a feature familiar to many McLaren fans over the past few years), so the slow turns 1, 4, 8, and 10 may exacerbate the car's shortcomings. Likewise, the hard stops required for these corners, most of which come after a long straight, won't flatter a car which has well-documented braking problems.
The problem with this theory is that it's not like Bahrain is the only track with slow speed corners after long straights. For example, Canada, Italy, USA, and Mexico have multiple slow corners or sequences of them. Can the team really be expecting to write off at least 20% of the tracks this year? Definitely not on purpose.
Also, it's not like Bahrain always throws up some crazy outlier results that are never seen for the rest of the year. Realistically this only seems to happen in Azerbaijan, and maybe in Hungary or Belgium if there's some crazy weather. Let's look at last year, when it was also the first race of the season. The teams ranked by qualifying performance were as follows:
Red Bull
Mercedes
Ferrari
AlphaTauri
McLaren
Alpine
Aston Martin
Alfa Romeo
Williams
Haas
Every single team is within one position of their final Constructor's Championship position come the end of the year (except AlphaTauri, who is off by two, but they had the fifth fastest car, so...). Yes, McLaren is lower than they finished, but it should be noted that in the race they finished best of the rest. OK, I hear you saying, "But that's not fair! Last year there was no real development, so the cars stayed more or less the same all year, this year is totally different!" Ok, let's turn the clock back to 2017, the last time the aero regulations were changed significantly, and take a look. Maybe that is more representative. Well, in qualifying for the 2017 Bahrain GP, which was only the third race of the year, we had:
Mercedes
Ferrari
Red Bull
Renault
Williams
Haas
Toro Rosso
Sauber
Force India
McLaren
This offers a little more hope, as Force India notably underperformed compared to where they finished the season (fourth). That being said, they did finish the race in seventh and tenth, much more promising than anything McLaren did. The bottom line is, yes, it is possible that Bahrain is one of the team's less-competitive tracks, but it is by no means completely unrepresentative of a team's season performance. Having only driven at two tracks, it is not really possible for a team to know which tracks they are strong on, and which they are not. So while it is possibly a contributing factor, it cannot provide a full explanation.
Mercedes Engine Issues?
It doesn't take a genius to notice a pattern or common trait among the three slowest teams in the race in Bahrain: they all have Mercedes engines. Could it be that somehow after all these years of having the most powerful power unit, dating back to 2014, that Mercedes has suddenly dropped the ball? Technically yes, but I doubt it. I don't think the Mercedes engine is less powerful than the Honda/Red Bull equivalent, or the Renault that is used by Alpine. Yes, Ferrari seems to have possibly the best engine, but it's not like 2014 when all the Mercedes-powered teams were 5-10+kph quicker down every straight.
Also, Williams is (unfortunately) a perennial underperformer and in the midst of its most drastic management overhaul in the last 45 years, so it's not fair to say that they are slow solely because of the engine. Likewise Aston Martin has openly stated that they are giving away up to 0.75s per lap to mitigate the "porpoising" issue, something which McLaren do not have, and yet they were about as fast as McLaren was. The Mercedes-powered cars were generally slower in a straight line, but it should be noted that Williams had competitive top speeds, so it is definitely possible to be competitive down the straights with that engine.
Perhaps the most worrying thing is that the engines are now frozen, meaning that they cannot be further developed or improved until they are replaced completely in 2026. This means that if there is any underlying advantage or disadvantage, this will remain for the foreseeable future. Also, it should be noted that every Mercedes team seemed to be on the limit in terms of cooling capacity in Bahrain, more so than their competitors. Did Mercedes underestimate the cooling requirements of its new engine? Maybe. Is there anything the teams can do about it in the short term? No.
Lingering Brake Problems
Perhaps McLaren's performance (or lack of it) can be traced directly or indirectly to the brake problems the team faced in testing. When the team rocked up for the race weekend, they had what can best be described as an "interim" solution to the problem, with the new front brake assemblies clearly rushed into production, looking a bit hodge-podge compared to the rest of the car. Apparently a more refined and complete solution is on its way, but may not be ready for several races.
The team also reprofiled their front brake ducts, which was likely done without significant wind tunnel testing due to the tight time constraints between the test and the race, so it's more than likely that these could be fully optimized still. However, I doubt that the brake duct shape would cost the team over 1s per lap, which is about how far off they were from where they should have been (in terms of race pace, at least).
Indirectly speaking, of course, the team likely paid the price for the lack of running during the second test, as they completed the fewest laps of any team. That being said, if you combine the total laps from the first and second test, they were still well ahead of Haas, for example, yet found themselves far behind them come Sunday evening.
Fundamental Car Concept
The most (or possibly second-most, as you'll read) alarming possibility, and the one that most teams would only consider as a last resort, is that the MCL36 is simply flawed. In this case, we would expect that the shortfall would be primarily aerodynamically, rather than mechanical, but that's by no means a guarantee. Looking generally at the grid, it would seem as if there are two primary schools of thought when it comes to what I'll call "top-side aerodynamics" and refers to the wings, floor edge, and sidepod design. Primarily looking at the sidepods, there seem to be teams which have wide sidepods (Ferrari, Red Bull, Haas, Alfa, Alpine, AlphaTauri, and Aston Martin) and those with skinny sidepods, more akin to the designs seen last year (Mercedes, Williams, and McLaren).
Obviously, it's too early to tell if one philosophy is more effective than the other, and as we saw in 2021 with Red Bull and Mercedes, it is possible to produce the same lap time with different concepts. But is it a coincidence that the three teams with skinny sidepods are all falling short of expectations? Maybe, but if it stays this way for the whole season, it might not be a coincidence, but rather a pattern.
What makes this alarming is that if the car has been designed around one concept, the front wing, floor, sidepods, etc. will all be designed to work together. It's not really possible to, for example, just make sidepods which are Ferrari copies and stick them on the McLaren, because the Ferrari sidepods are designed to direct air from the Ferrari front wing, down to Ferrari's floor and diffuser, and work with Ferrari's rear wing. If the car concept is not good, then teams are better off just restarting from scratch, which means a half or a full season before any meaningful changes.
Not Aiming High Enough
This might be the most alarming possibility, because it actually neatly would explain most of McLaren's shortcomings, and some of it's most puzzling characteristics. It's possible that McLaren simply underestimated the competition's development over the winter. Consider this: when the new regulations were announced, the initial impression was that the new cars would be 2.5-3s slower than their predecessors. Comparing McLaren's qualifying times a year apart, they were about 2s slower than last year. Sounds alright, except when you consider that Ferrari were only 0.9s slower than last year, and Haas was actually 1s faster than 2021.
Where this really would make sense though is when you consider the team's reaction after Barcelona testing. They felt good, and said that they were matching their expectations and simulations in terms of correlation and lap time. Well, if they are matching expectations and are still getting lapped in races, then clearly your expectations were too low. Also, the team doesn't really seem to know why they are so slow, which points to the fact that they genuinely did not expect to be slow. The drivers say, in quali at least, that the car feels decently balanced, it's just slow.
That is a team's worst nightmare, because when the car is unbalanced and slow, you at least know what the problem is: you are typically clearly lacking downforce either on the front end or on the rear end, and therefore you focus on adding performance to whichever end is lacking. In the race, the drivers seemed to say that the car was a lot less consistent, suffering from understeer and oversteer, while still lacking pace. This is hardly better, because now it seems like the car's behavior is not even very predictable. Yikes.
Another 2022-specific issue afflicting most cars is the "porpoising" effect described earlier. To get around this, teams typically have to raise their ride heights, which causes the underbody aero to become less effective, as well as raising the center of gravity. Mercedes and Aston Martin are among the most badly affected, with the latter suggesting they are losing 0.5-0.75s per lap (that's like 30-40s over a race distance!) because of the accommodations they have to make. Logically, then, we can expect Mercedes and Aston in particular to make a leap forward once they've solved this problem.
Here's the thing about McLaren, though: they don't have this problem, meaning they don't have obvious lap time gains available. In fact, if you watch a McLaren onboard you can hear the car bottoming out very early on the straights, suggesting their ride height is already extremely low. Why doesn't the car bounce like every one else's if it is so low? Well nobody's really quite sure, maybe not even McLaren, but let me suggest something I have seen on a few technical forums I follow. If the bouncing is caused by excessive floor downforce, maybe McLaren's floor simply doesn't produce enough of it to induce the phenomenon? It's a definite possibility. In the interest of not droning on for another 30 minutes about the variation in car designs, just know that compared to other teams, McLaren's (especially in the floor department) seems rather basic.
Before we go, there is clearly a rebuttal to this argument. Basically, "If McLaren set their targets too low, wouldn't they just keep going past them, or set new targets that were higher? I mean, this seems a little too amateurish to believe." And you know what, maybe you're right, but only people within the team would know, so we will have to wait until somebody somewhere writes a book about how either McLaren totally flopped in 2022, or how it recovered after such an underwhelming start.
The Verdict
To answer the question posed at the very start of this, we should be very worried about McLaren in 2022. There doesn't appear to be any low-hanging fruit in terms of car development, there isn't allowed to be any engine development, and we need to keep in mind that even if the team can reach the performance level expected of them (at least as fast as Haas and Alfa Romeo were in Bahrain), by the time they do, the targets will have already moved. Time will tell if this season can be salvaged, or if the team would be better off to do what Haas and Alfa Romeo did in 2021 and essentially abandon this year's concept to make sure next year is a definitive improvement.
Sorry McLaren fans, it looks like 2022 may be a year to forget. But the silver lining is that if they somehow do turn it around, it will almost certainly be one to remember.
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