The Decline of McLaren F1: What is going wrong at the British team?

Undoubtedly, the start to the 2023 F1 season has been McLaren’s toughest challenge in recent years. A slow decline since the departure of driver, Carlos Sainz, has led the Woking-based outfit to be in a position of failure and trouble. This must have F1 spectators scratching their heads and wondering what has happened to such a promising team and can they get back on track?

With Zak Brown’s appointment as CEO of McLaren Racing in 2018, it has been a new dawn in the history of this prestigious team. The utter failure of the previous three years under the engines of Honda compounded Mclaren to the lower half of the constructor’s standings. The team finished in 9th place in 2015 marking their worst performance since 1980. The dismal driving of Vandoorne and Alonso in the uncompetitive car compounded Mclaren’s perceived progress and led to a switch of engine to Renault.

A complete driver lineup change with Carlos Sainz arriving from Renault and Lando Norris being promoted from the reserve role was risky, but ultimately paid off. Sainz had previous experience at Toro Rosso and Renault and Norris was one of the hottest young drivers on the market. 2019 and 2020 were extremely rewarding years with podiums achieved by both drivers, most notably Sainz’s third place finish at Brazil in 2019 and Norris’ heroics at the Red Bull Ring in 2020. But all good things must come to an end. Sainz signed for his dream team in Ferrari to form an exciting partnership with Charles Leclerc and Norris was left to hold his boyhood team together.

The signing of former Red Bull driver, Daniel Ricciardo, was supposed to be a statement of intent. A proven race winner and competitive driver, Ricciardo was meant to seamlessly fill the void that Sainz had left behind. However, this decision did not play out so smoothly. With the car seemingly more suited for Norris, Ricciardo was left playing catch up. Whilst Norris was able to consistently reach Q3, Ricciardo was unable to even make it out of Q1 at times and not score points as a result. Ricciardo’s only saving grace was his iconic win at Monza in 2021 with Norris in second position.

However, Ricciardo’s time at McLaren was short lived. Failing to live up to the hype with struggling drives and being outperformed by Norris, Ricciardo was fired and replaced by compatriot, the rookie Oscar Piastri. McLaren’s start to the 2023 season was overshadowed by lengthy contract disputes, perhaps resulting in confusion and an inability to appropriately construct a car to challenge the top teams. Piastri and McLaren were involved in disagreements with Alpine and even a potential lawsuit as Alpine were ready to promote Piastri to their own race seat, left behind by Fernando Alonso. With so much happening off track, McLaren could only wait for the season to start to see where their car was truly at in terms of raw pace and performance.

Perhaps the recruitment of Piastri to the race seat was not what McLaren needed. Despite winning the F2 championship in 2021, Piastri had had a year out in the reserve role at Alpine. This could have created some nervousness and lack of experience over getting the primary racing role at any team. With no experience and an unusually young driver lineup, Mclaren could only hope for a decent start to their campaign. At the season opener in Bahrain, Piastri retired and Norris only finished in a bleak 17th place. Further issues led Mclaren to have to release a team statement, announcing a major restructuring of the team in hope of rectifying the issues they had.

Fast forward to the end of Round 5 in Miami, McLaren are still failing to perform. After promising races in Melbourne and Baku where both drivers secured points finishes, the Woking based outfit were simply unable to capitalise. It can be seen that McLaren have dwindled on making progress and are falling further and further down the field. With Norris having signed a multi year contract extension last year, McLaren at least have hope that they can develop their car with his ideas and approach in mind. But with the potential departure of Sergio Perez from Red Bull or perhaps even the retirement of Lewis Hamilton in the near future, the top teams will be licking their lips at the idea of signing the young British driver. This could present Norris with an opportunity that would be too good to turn down.

With two major driver changes and a car that simply cannot compete with the best teams on circuit, the 2023 season is looking in jeopardy for McLaren. Their only hope is that they can get back to their best as soon as possible, otherwise Lando Norris may be forced to look at opportunities elsewhere. However, this much is clear: the worst is yet to be upon us.