The start of the season for McLaren it will be uphill. The three days in Bahrain led the team to “temporarily limit” damage caused by overheating of the brakes. Performance will need to be scaled down to avoid compromising reliability.
La McLaren in Bahrain has anything but shone. TO Barcelona the car responded well, moreover, the MCL36 had been praised for solving the problem of pouring before anyone else. However, within a couple of weeks, the scenario changed, as did the mood within the team.
In the second phase of testing, with the high temperatures and more austere braking areas, the first problems related to the brake cooling, exacerbated by the changes introduced by the new regulation and by the change from the supply of brake calipers Akebono to the plant Brembo, already adopted by the rest of the cars on the grid. Such a problem cannot be solved overnight and, considering the very small amount of time between the end of testing and the first Grand Prix, a compromise can be sought, but it will be difficult to find a solution that does not require the drivers to do not push or that does not affect its reliability.
The first attempt, i.e. the arrival of new components on the last day of testing, made it possible stint longer but did not bring the results hoped for by the team, which in the entire session, only covered 200 rounds, and that speaks of an interim solution. To give a measure of greatness we make the comparison with the main competitors of McLaren, or rather, to those with whom it aspires to confront: the Red Bull made 320; there Ferrari 349; the Mercedes 385. This issue put the McLaren in a somewhat awkward position, forced to recover the work that others have instead largely resolved. Also to this are added the concerns about Daniel Ricciardo result on Friday, positive at Covid-19. Daniel since Wednesday previous to the start of the tests he had developed a slight flu, therefore he missed the whole test session.
According to protocol, the Australian will be able to come out of isolation on the Thursday before the Grand Prix weekend in Bahrain. In the opposite case the McLaren can rely on Oscar piastri, young pilot of the nursery Alpine, made available by the French team for the entire season. There McLaren has in fact signed an agreement with Alpine which provides access to the services of the young talent in case of emergency, giving greater coverage and security to the English team compared to the "alternatives" of Stoffel vandoorne e Nyck de vries engaged in Formula E, shared with Mercedes.
“We continued to improve our understanding of the car and achieve more performance throughout the test” says the team principal Andreas Seidl who, despite having highlighted the difficulties of adaptation in this first phase, is confident.
“The goal is to resolve this issue completely before the Grand Prix of Bahrain of next weekend. Winter testing has now concluded and we are very excited to be back racing.”