McLaren boss takes shots at Aston Martin

McLaren boss Zak Brown lashed out at Aston Martin over their lackluster performance in 2021. The American believes the upcoming regulatory changes won't be enough to help the team challenge for the title.

The 2022 regulation changes hope to bring in a big difference to how F1 works, with cars trading downforce for closer racing as one of the consequences. A budgetary cap was introduced to further help smaller teams challenge those at the top, leveling the playing field. Brown, however, feels as though 2022 is too soon for his team to make full use of these changes and shoot for the title. He said:

“I don’t think the championship is a realistic target. As far as a title contender we’re still catching up on our infrastructure and specifically our wind tunnel, and it’s such a critical element of car development that we are hindered there.”

The 50-year-old McLaren exec then lashed out at Aston Martin, who had a disappointing season after making tall claims about their side ahead of the 2021 season. McLaren managed to win a race in 2021, unlike Aston Martin, who consistently struggled for pace. He told RACER:

“So, can we win a race? We won one last year convincingly, almost two. I don’t want to get into race predictions — I don’t want to do what Aston did and say, ‘You haven’t seen anything yet’ and then they went totally backwards! Our goal is to be more competitive than we were last year. That’s our goal.”

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Ferrari comfortably beat McLaren for third place in 2021

Ferrari's Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc had consistent performances throughout the season. In contrast, McLaren's Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris struggled for pace on multiple occasions.

The clear outlier for this bunch of drivers is Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian had an extremely underwhelming debut season with the team from Woking, failing to finish on points on multiple occasions.

Carlos Sainz, on the other hand, had an extremely successful debut season with Ferrari, out-performing team-mate Charles Leclerc on multiple occasions. As per former F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone, Sainz's performance garnered attention from members back at the Ferrari factory in Maranello. He said:

“Let’s put it this way – many people in Maranello are surprised that the Spaniard [Carlos Sainz] could give team-mate Charles Leclerc such a run for his money in 2021. For me, Leclerc was always a very good driver, but not anything more.”

McLaren finished the season in fourth place, nearly 50 points behind the Prancing Horse.