McLaren technical director James Key reveals ‘COVID’ and ‘Brexit’ to be the reasons behind the poor performance of the team in 2022
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A massive rule and regulation change was observed at the start of the 2022 season. This rule change was supposed to take place in 2021 itself but Covid came and the rules were pushed to 2022 instead.. The time period clearly had an impact on McLaren and other teams on the grid.
In this rule change, the FIA introduced a reprofiling of aerodynamics cleaning up the top face of the cars. The governing body reintroduced ground effect in an attempt to promote more exciting racing action. McLaren is still left without their own wind tunnel and has always been using Toyota’s former facility based in Cologne to carry out their aero testing. Although the distance between the factory and the facility is a big issue.
During Covid, the team members used to travel to Germany and isolate for a few days before getting to do the work that they came here to do. This meant a few days of aero work took almost a month. This was one of the reasons that the development was so slow and that has affected the 2022 car. McLaren technical director James Key revealed some of the problems that they faced.
Also read : Sergio Perez reveals he will ‘not end F1 career’ after expiration of current deal with Red Bull
“We’ve chided ourselves a little bit for not being as brave as we could’ve been,” James Key on Mclaren’s 2022 performance
“For us, at the beginning of last year, with a wind tunnel in Europe, just after Brexit, in the midst of Covid, it actually caused us a lot of logistical problems. We didn’t fulfil our quota of wind tunnel runs in the first, what would’ve been 24 weeks or so of the year, I think. So we were hugely behind on both cars, both the ’21 car and the ’22 car because we simply couldn’t make use of the wind tunnel or anything like as well as if could if it was just next door,” he said
“The travel arrangements kept having to change -the Covid rules in Britain and Germany, were very different, they were very dynamic. People had to go out for a month maybe, rather than just a few days because they had to isolate. There’s all sorts of things going on. It meant that we simply couldn’t turn things around anything like as fast as you could if you had that facility next door,” he continued.
He further went on to talk about the progress they could achieved if they would have pushed harder, “Beyond that, I think, to be honest, we’ve chided ourselves a little bit for not being as brave as we could’ve been.”
McLaren’s woes will last for a few more years with their planning going down the drain. This includes the severe lack of financial stability that runs through the team currently. It will take time for the Woking squad to get back to winning races.
Also read : “Some people didn’t believe we would come back”: Guenther Steiner reveals Haas suffered 20% loss in their staff after 2021
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Varad Joshi
(940 Articles Published)