The papayas never seemed competitive at any point in the race and this will be a huge concern for Zak Brown.
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With two highly rated drivers in Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in their ranks, there was a lot of hype surrounding McLaren ahead of the season-opening 2023 Bahrain GP. However, things clearly did not go to plan as Piastri retired early on in the race citing gearbox issues and Lando Norris finished P17. The papayas never seemed competitive at any point in the race and this will be a huge concern for Zak Brown and the team going forward. So, how did it all go so drastically wrong? The team’s technical director James Key might have an answer for disappointed papaya fans.
“Where this (the major issue) happened actually is when we took the 15mm floor step,” he said. The FIA mandated a change in the height of the floor, which raises the cars by 15mm and prevents floor stalling, but at the cost of a reduction in total downforce, making the cars slower overall around the track. This was done in an effort to permanently eliminate the porpoising that plagued the 2022 cars, particularly Mercedes. The Mercedes-powered teams were at the forefront of the push for a 25mm increase in floor height over the summer break, as Mercedes was the team most affected by the phenomenon. However, the FIA ultimately decided on a compromise figure of 15mm given that most teams other than Mercedes had found a solution to their porpoising problems.
“This sounds very small, but these floors are huge and incredibly sensitive,” said Key. “Look at how much downforce it generates, massive. So when we did it on our car, it actually gave us a much bigger loss than anticipated. It seems to have affected different teams in different ways. And to a certain extent, it seems to be related to the floor edge geometry that you’re running at the time. Last year, there were two camps beginning to develop, one which we were in, and one which probably the majority of teams were in. And when we took that [15mm] step, it was a really big knock for us.”
According to F1 pundit and commentator Karun Chandhok, Lando Norris will be considering forcing a move to Red Bull or Ferrari after McLaren’s poor start to the 2023 Formula 1 season. As a pneumatic pressure leak forced him to pit six times and derailed his hopes of challenging for points, Norris finished last of the 17 drivers in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. The troubles for McLaren were made worse by the retirement of Oscar Piastri, Norris’ rookie teammate, whose F1 debut was cut short after just 14 laps due to electrical problems.
“I tell you who will be thinking about a move to Ferrari or Red Bull though, is young Lando Norris,” Chandhok said as per Sky Sports. “Looking at where they’re [McLaren] at, and we were talking before the season of McLaren locking him in and Zak [Brown] doing an amazing job of contracting him [Norris] in for that four-year period. I do wonder, and if they’re smart they would have created some sort of exit clauses.”
