"Every weekend is a battle" - McLaren CEO wary of 2022 F1 midfield 'getting closer'

McLaren CEO Zak Brown said that his team will face an uphill battle every race weekend to keep its current position in the Constructor Standings as the midfield gets ever closer.

With Aston Martin joining the ranks of Alpine, Alfa Romeo, and Alpha Tauri in the fight for midfield supremacy, Brown said that McLaren had a tough job ahead. Speaking at the FIA press conference during the Canadian GP weekend, he said:

“You know, every weekend is a battle. It’s tough, and the field is getting closer, which is what you’d expect as people start to get more familiar with the new cars.”

He continued:

“So, we want to just continue to push forward. Getting both cars into Q3 is always the first goal and then bringing both cars home in the points is the second goal. And the third goal is to be as close to the front as possible. But, you know, it’s one step at a time.”

Since the season opener in Bahrain, where the British team had the slowest car on the grid, owing to several teetering problems, it has come a long way. Similar to championship leader Red Bull, the Woking-based squad has managed to leave behind its early-season woes to cement its usual “best-of-the-rest” position behind the leading trio.

However, in recent races, as other teams have started to unlock more performance from their cars, McLaren’s position in the standings has come under jeopardy. The team had one of their worst showings of the season in Montreal as neither Daniel Ricciardo nor Lando Norris managed to secure a top ten finish.

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McLaren boss blames ‘reliability and operational issues’ for lack of pace in Montreal

McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl said “reliability and operational issues” were the reasons behind MCL36’s lack of pace during the Canadian GP weekend. These issues reportedly forced the team to “hold back on the pace” during the race, essentially putting them out of contention.

Speaking to News Australia, he said:

“It’s been a tough weekend in general, with the car lacking pace, having reliability issues and suffering an operational issue in the double-shuffle pit stop during the Virtual Safety Car period. We have to acknowledge our competitors did a better job and therefore we didn’t deserve points today.”

He continued:

“Just a little bit of temperature stuff (was holding us back). Once we start to manage temperatures and things like this, it put us out of the fight. Would love to have had a better race but we simply just weren’t quick enough.”

Throughout the weekend, the team lacked the pace to compete at the front of the midfield pack; while Ricciardo did manage to salvage some pace on race day, an ill-timed pit stop robbed him of a points-scoring position.