🇸🇦 F1'23: R2 - A mystery wrapped in orange

Let’s be honest about it. This was probably the most pedestrian race of the Drive to Survive era. A safety car at a fairly convenient time allowed the front runners to pit and neutralised the poor starting positions for Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc - who had both made up numerous places - while it also minimised the penalty handed to Fernando Alonso for being in the wrong place in his grid box. 

That penalty came back to haunt Aston Martin, given that - for the second race in a row - a driver was given a 10-second penalty for not following their initial 5-second sanction properly.

But despite what was a lights-to-flag victory for Sergio Perez in all but name, there are still plenty of things we’ve learned about most teams. Most teams, except for maybe McLaren.

Let’s set the scene a little bit. For this season, McLaren ditched Daniel Ricciardo for another Australian, taking Oscar Piastri from Alpine’s academy programme, and both moves came at a significant financial cost. Given the other motorsport programs McLaren run, they’ve got lots of other drivers, and that extended universe in IndyCar, IndyCar drivers at other teams, Formula E, Extreme E, they are not short of options.

From August 2022: The McLaren Extended Universe is falling apart

With established star Lando Norris and rookie Piastri, on paper, this should be a young, hungry team with a bit of experience and drive looking to push to the next level, finishing fifth in 2022 and challenging Alpine.

It has not quite worked out like that.

Piastri did brilliantly in Saudi Arabia qualifying, giving them some hope that they can live with the likes of the Alpines and compete for a couple of points, and avoid parallels with their disastrous 2017 season, which was the last time they went without points after the first two Grands Prix in the season. Back then, one of those drivers was an annoyed Alonso. 

Fast-forward back to Sunday in Jeddah. Piastri and Pierre Gasly made contact early, taking some bodywork off the McLaren and forcing him to change his front wing. Follow that up with Norris pitting at the end of lap 2, and it made for the second consecutive race where McLaren were fighting with backmarkers in an effort to finish in the bottom six. The safety car didn’t help them, even when they only put new tyres on Norris.

So, McLaren, you’ve spent a lot of money on getting the driver lineup you want, you’ve got incredible facilities and there seems to be a real sense of buzz from the team. Has something gone badly wrong here? Or is this just an early blip, with Piastri’s Q3 appearance being more reflective of the team’s pace. 

This can be answered in two parts. First, they know they missed their aerodynamic targets as Zak Brown said at testing.

With the gap between Australia and the start of the European season, Albert Park might be the last race of pain for McLaren if they can get their upgrades in place by Baku at the end of April. It seems this is what the team are targeting too. The problem they have is that they won’t be the only one, with the other teams also looking at that four-week period without races as a chance to dominate heading into the first sprint weekend of the season. 

But is a third race without a points finish acceptable? We’re back in GP2 engine territory here, with it not happening in the same season since their horrible 2018 year, which was actually the first year of their recovery towards being a respectable upper midcard team.

Holding their nerve becomes super important now, with the team not panicking about being at the bottom of the standings, collecting the same number of points as Ricciardo, who doesn’t have a drive in 2023.

There is also some caution, however, which we saw towards the end of the race. 

On tyres he’d driven for 40+ laps, Piastri was allowed past Norris to challenge Sargeant and the Australian came out on top in the rookie battle. But Norris could not get past the American as he finished 17th for the second race in a row. 

We’re meant to be watching Last Lap Lando. One of the most exciting drivers on the grid, pushing from wherever he is with an aggressive driving style that accelerates past his rivals. A team that could - maybe should - have won two consecutive races in 2021 with the 1-2 in Monza followed by the drenched heartbreak in Sochi. Norris (and to a lesser extent Sainz and Ricciardo) were normalising high achievement, pushing higher for more points as McLaren improved by 50+ points each season from 2019-2021. 

Last season was a blip, which takes us back to McLaren’s lawyers working overtime on their driver lineup, swapping one Australian for another, and plenty of stalking horses in America to keep everyone honest. But after two races of their new, settled era, no one really knows what the ceiling is for this team currently - and all they’ve got is a lot of data on how low the floor really is.

Formula 1 moves on to Australia, with Albert Park acting as a home grand prix for Oscar Piastri. It seems the big winner from moving away from McLaren is Daniel Ricciardo, but it’s a long, intense season, and there is plenty of time for the papaya team to turn things around. Australia might be one race too soon when time is not on their side.

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