Andreas Seidl isn’t surprised that Alpine and Alfa Romeo have often been equal to or faster than McLaren this year given the British team can no longer outspend them.
It’s been a largely disappointing first half of 2022 for Seidl and co, with McLaren P4 in the standings and often slower than multiple midfield teams after being at the top of that group in 2021.
There have been occasions where they’ve been the best of the rest, but they’ve also been slower than Alpine, Alfa Romeo and Haas at multiple circuits.
This doesn’t come as a shock to Seidl, who never expected them to be able to fight the top teams for wins this year despite the regulation changes that were introduced.
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“I didn’t expect a big change in the pecking order going into this new era of Formula 1,” the team principal told RacingNews365.
“Why? Because the teams that are simply better teams right now, with their established organisations – with their established infrastructure, with their established tools they are using – there is no reason why they should not do a better job compared to us preparing [for] this new era.
“And that’s what we are seeing.”
The gap between them and those behind closing is also something he saw coming given the budget gap that has been implemented has prevented McLaren from outspending them.
“We should also not forget that all the teams that we were outspending in the past – because we were the fourth biggest team – suddenly are in the middle of the fight as well,” he continued.
“Some of these teams, like Alpine, like Alfa Romeo, they have state-of-the-art infrastructure in place already.
“That’s why we have to accept that these guys can do as good as us, maybe even ahead of us at the moment, which is not a situation we are happy with, but that’s the reality we are in.”
The British team have often made it clear that their goal is to regularly fight for wins and championships again, but while many fans hoped they’d be able to start doing so as soon as the new regulations were introduced, the team have always had a less optimistic timeline.
Seidl says the goal is to be at the front of the field again by 2025, and is confident new facilities being introduced will help them achieve that.
“We plan to have the wind tunnel ready [by the] middle of next year, which means part of the ’24 car development will benefit from the new wind tunnel already,” he said.
“The first full car that [will be] developed in the tunnel is the ’25 car. On the driving simulator side, we are planning to complete a new one [at the] end of this year/beginning of next year, where we then hopefully see some benefits already next year, or [at the] latest in ’24.”
Just who will be driving in the cars produced by those facilities is very much unclear, with the team set to enter a court battle with Alpine over Oscar Piastri, who seemingly has contracts with both outfits.
If they wish to field him next year, they will have to pay Daniel Ricciardo a considerable amount to terminate his contract early.