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McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl remained upbeat and optimistic despite the team's disappointing start to the 2022 season at the Bahrain GP last weekend.
Speaking to the media during a pre-race press conference for team principals ahead of the 2022 F1 Saudi Arabian GP, the German outlined the mood in the McLaren garage after staring on the back foot. Seidl said:
“I wouldn’t call it a shock. It was obviously a disappointment and painful starting the season like we did in Bahrain. We have different reasons. Obviously, we had challenging tests the week before with the brake temperature issues we had on the front axle. We started straight away the first race weekend on the back foot, not having done enough laps but at the same time, you also have to acknowledge, we simply don’t have the ultimate performance in the car that we wanted to have for the first race.”
McLaren applying learnings from Bahrain GP in Saudi Arabia, as per Andreas Seidl
McLaren boss Andreas Seidl confirmed that the Woking-based team took their abject performances in the 2022 F1 season opener as lessons.
Seidl acknowledged that the team was facing a 'challenging situation' ahead of the second Grand Prix of the year. He said:
“It’s a challenging situation. At the same time it’s a situation where we can show everything we have put in place in the last two-three years in terms of organization, in terms of culture as well, that we are ready to come back and fight back as quickly as possible. It’s my responsibility also to lead this, together with Lando (Norris) and Daniel (Ricciardo). Working day and night at the moment, in order to correct the situation as quickly as possible. I think if you look at what you have seen yesterday, we look like we were also able to make a small step forward, applying the learnings from the first race weekend, because we still had to learn a lot with the challenging test we had before so I see big fighting spirit within the team and as I said, I have no doubt that we will come back.”
Despite what he felt was a step forward, both Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo were unable to make it into the top 10 during qualifying for the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. McLaren could be in for more pain when the lights go out on Sunday, March 27.
