McLaren F1 Team’s executive director, Andrea Stella, has labelled the two Friday practice sessions for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as “productive” as the team looks to make up for the bad start to the year at the opening race of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship.
The 2022 season opener in Bahrain was not what fans expected of McLaren, who were only able to finish fourteenth and fifteenth (with the aid of some retirements) and almost a minute behind the leaders in what was essentially a bonus practice session for the papaya-coloured outfit.
Despite the knock-back that was the Bahrain Grand Prix, the number four driver of Lando Norris insisted that McLaren would enter the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend with their ‘heads held high‘ – and the signs seem promising for McLaren so far.
“We’ve had two productive sessions here in Jeddah and were able to work through the programme that we planned. There were no real issues with the car, and in this sense it’s a more normal weekend than the one we had in Bahrain,” Stella states.
“The car seems to be performing better here, which is encouraging. Now, we have to do our due diligence overnight, in order to extract the maximum from the package, qualify well and be in contention for some points on Sunday – which we are very much looking forward to,” the racing director claimed.
McLaren have spent the last handful of seasons recovering from the struggle that was the McLaren-Honda partnership, and were able to return to the top step of the podium in 2021 with Daniel Ricciardo and Norris scoring a 1-2 at Monza. While the start of the 2022 season saw a step-back for McLaren, the Woking-based teams seems a lot more confident in their package heading into round two.
Image: McLaren Media Centre.