"This is not an excuse"- McLaren discloses how Brexit and Covid caused them 'logistic problems' in 2021 F1 season

McLaren technical director James Key confessed that Brexit and the Covid pandemic are largely to blame for the team's struggles with the new generation of F1.

For the 2022 season, a new set of technical regulations were introduced. So far, McLaren have used the former Toyota facility based in Cologne, as reported by GPFans, to test their aerodynamics. The German city, however, is fairly far away from the main factory in Woking, resulting in logistical problems for the team.

Speaking about these logistical problems, Key said:

“I think that’s fair to say - this is not an excuse, we’ve all have had this challenge - I think we kind of suffered a bit in the early stages of the ‘22 car, which is when you’re really adventuring in concepts and directions and beginning to look at the space you’ve got in which to work and seeing what you can do with it. It’s easy to forget, but there’s no real aero activity up until the beginning of last year. For us, at the beginning of last year, with a wind tunnel in Europe, just after Brexit, in the midst of Covid, it actually caused us a lot of logistical problems.”

He then went on to say:

“We didn’t fulfill our quota of wind tunnel runs in the first, what would’ve been 24 weeks or so of the year, I think. So we were hugely behind on both cars, both the ’21 car and the ’22 car because we simply couldn’t make use of the wind tunnel or anything like as well as if could if it was just next door. The travel arrangements kept having to change - the Covid rules in Britain and Germany, were very different, they were very dynamic. People had to go out for a month maybe, rather than just a few days because they had to isolate.”

The Woking-based team has made significant progress over the last couple of years, having finished within the top four in the constructors' standings since 2019. This season, however, Alpine pose a massive threat to the team.

McLaren's fourth-place position was taken by the French outfit over the last few races of the first half of the season, potentially putting the team's top-four result streak in danger of being broken by the end of the year.

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McLaren's Lando Norris "more comfortable" now after three years in F1

Now racing in the fourth season of his F1 career, Lando Norris recently admitted that he is a lot more comfortable with the way he is performing and dealing with the pressures and expectations that come from being a driver.

As reported by Autosport, the Briton said:

“Now I feel a bit more comfortable. I feel like I’m performing very well, I’m delivering when I need to deliver. I’m comfortable on-track. But I’m also able to live a good life, and can relax when I’m away from Formula 1, and not just think ‘what do I have to do for next time, because I’ve done a shit job here’ or whatever, which is just a little bit more what I was like a few years ago.”

While Lando Norris' future at McLaren is secure, the same cannot be said for his teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who is at risk of being replaced by Oscar Piastri in the team.