McLaren braced for “incredibly tight battle” for third in F1 2021

McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl expects his side will face an even tougher fight in the battle over third place in the Formula 1 constructors’ championship this year.

The Woking squad broke into F1’s top three for the first time since 2012 last season and claimed two podium finishes as it came out on top of an intense, year-long midfield scrap.

Having signed Daniel Ricciardo to replace Carlos Sainz and switched to Mercedes power units for 2021, McLaren hopes to once again head the front of the midfield pack this year. 

While McLaren enjoyed a strong three-day pre-season test in Bahrain, Seidl is wary of the renewed threat set to come from the likes of Aston Martin, Alpine, Ferrari and AlphaTauri. 

“It is difficult to know exactly the pecking order,” Seidl said. “But I think with everything that we have seen so far we can expect an incredibly tight battle again between the usual suspects.

“I think we will be again in the same fight we were in last year.

“From my point of view it was important to use the time [in Bahrain] to find the right balance between covering the test items and doing good mileage to understand the car, and to be in a position to extract the maximum performance from the package we have.

“It was important to see that we are on top of reliability. And last but not least it was also important to go through the race weekend with that race team again, through all the race weekend’s specific procedures.”

McLaren faced one of the biggest hurdles of any team over the shortened winter break with the complicated installation of its new Mercedes engine, and Seidl admits the team will not know where it truly stands until qualifying at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

“We should not forget that also with our new partner Mercedes we have to go through a lot of things for the first time under real pressure in two weeks,” he added.

“Going for qualifying and a race is challenging because it is a complex topic to operate these modern power units with the team in this situation.

“But looking at how this last month went, I am really happy I have to say with everything that the team has done with all the energy everyone has put in.

“And to come here with the new power unit in a new car after some big changes also in the aerodynamic regulations, and to see how we could pull it off as a team is encouraging.

“But at the same time will only see in qualifying in Bahrain where we actually are.”