McLaren, the 2009 season as inspiration to return

McLaren, the great disappointment of the first Grand Prix of the season. In Bahrain, the British team completely missed the point: no car in Q3, a retirement for Oscar piastri and one last place for Lando Norris after six (!) visits to the pits. A zero point tinged with humiliation for a team which was still fighting for 4th place among the manufacturers in 2022.

If the disappointment is immense, with a poorly born McLaren MCL60, the hopes are not dashed. Andrea Stella, the new principal of the Woking (UK)-based team, recalls difficult seasons for McLaren in the past and a sudden return to the front. “We want to be able to do what McLaren were able to do in 2009, I remember they got a lot of performance back in 2012 too, declared the Italian. I believe we have the potential to outperform our competitors. I hope we can add 2023 to this list of special years. »

The 2009 season, the good example for McLaren?

A little historical reminder: in 2009, the year of new technical regulations in F1 with the introduction of the SREC (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), the reigning world champions had fallen in the hierarchy, with only 14 points scored in the first 9 Grands Prix. McLaren then introduced many major developments to get back into the game. Result: in the second part of the season, the Woking team won two victories with Hamilton, with a total of 57 points over the last 8 rounds.

A precedent which should however be complicated to reproduce, as the delay is significant for McLaren. The English team is also constrained by the budget ceiling, which prevents it from spending lavishly to make changes. For Lando Norris, we will especially have to bet on 2024 to see McLaren move up the hierarchy.

“We have seen how much Aston has progressed year on year. We have clearly seen how Ferrari took a big step from 2021 to 2022, underlined the Briton, who nevertheless hopes for the arrival of major developments for the current season. Both of those steps happened in the offseason, so maybe there's more potential to make such a big change [at that time]. But there is no reason why 50% or 75% of these changes cannot be made during the season. »

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