McLaren earned a fifth and sixth place finish in Melbourne last weekend, but Andreas Seidl acknowledges that they have a lot more work to do.
The 2022 season got off to a rocky start for McLaren. It started with Daniel Ricciardo missing a part of pre-season due to Covid, with him getting ready right in the nick of time.
On top of that, their car did not look to be particularly fast. It struggled for pace compared to others, and it showed on the timing charts. They went without earning a single point in Bahrain, but somewhat capitalized after Lando Norris’ P7 finish in Jeddah.
Australia on the other hand proved to be a moment of resurgence for them. McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl said after Jeddah that in spite of a poor start, they are on the right track. Their outing in Albert Park proved that the German was right.
Both Ricciardo and Norris looked very strong in all sessions, and topped it off with a P5 and P6 finish respectively. There are 20 more races left in the 2022 season, but Seidl wants to use this as a motivation for rest of the year.
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Australia was a turning point for McLaren, says Andreas Seidl
Seidl revealed that the whole outfit was pumped after their strong Australian GP. At the start of the campaign, it didn’t look like they could fight for the points, but Melbourne was proof that they were on the right track.
“Obviously we are very satisfied with the result of the race,” he said as quoted by motorsport.com. “We finished in fifth and sixth positions, we scored 18 points overall. And returned to fourth place in the Constructors’ classification. It is a good step forward compared to the previous weekend in Jeddah.”
“There are three reasons for this progress. We brought a few small updates that worked. Our car adapted very well to the smooth layout of this track and we put into practice what we had learned in Saudi Arabia.”
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In spite of their positive outing in Melbourne, Seidl remains wary of the fact that 2022 is far from over. They need to continue in the same way if they want to make bigger strides.
“This result, compared to our start to the season, represents a turning point,” the 46-year old said. “For the first time we managed to bring both cars into the points. But on a flying lap we know we have a one-second gap to the top cars.
“Obviously we are not happy with this, but our ambition is to reduce this gap,” he concluded.
