McLaren '18 months behind' on their 2023 F1 car development

McLaren is apparently half-a-year behind schedule in developing their car for the upcoming season, according to the team's technical director James Key.

After an appalling season, Key spoke about their car while talking to the media, and it wasn't a good look. He talked about the developmental plans for the cars and how their implementation is taking an extremely long time.

Key disclosed that the team has been preparing to implement these plans since 2019:

"In 2019, Andreas [Seidl] and I arrived, we said immediately we've got some infrastructure to put in here, because we're out of date."

However, in 2020, the pandemic hit, and Key put the blame on the same for the delay in the implementation of the plans. In his words, there were a few "Key areas" for the team to work on, but the pandemic threw a wrench in the works.

"We had an expansion plan for some of the key areas, and then the pandemic hit the world and all of that came to a stop, so we haven't reaped the rewards of any of those infrastructure investments yet, they're still happening, they're 18 months behind, and the expansion plan had to stop."

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Andreas Seidl is "aware" of McLaren's current position

Andreas Seidl, team principal at McLaren, stated that he is aware of their current position in contrast to their rivals. He also talked about the infrastructure that is putting the team behind at the moment but is confident that they will be able to overcome the obstacles. Autosport quoted him as saying:

"I have a realistic view on where we are right now as a team. I'm also aware of the limitations we're still having, mainly on the infrastructure side, especially compared to the teams that are running in front of us."

McLaren has been on a downward trajectory since 2020 when they finished third in the standings with 202 points. Ferrari's underperformance was more to blame for the same, but they still had a decent finish behind the Scuderia in 2021, a respectable fourth place. But this season, they finished fifth after losing their battle to Alpine.

The team are now looking forward to the 2023 season with Oscar Piastri instead of Daniel Ricciardo as one of their drivers. Piastri won the Formula 2 championship in 2021 and is expected to help the team climb up in the constructors' standings.