VIDEO | How McLaren returned to form in under three minutes!

2015

We’ll start back in 2015. McLaren have Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button as their driver lineup, arguably one of the more formiddable on the grid and had teamed up with Honda to help McLaren return to the glory days. It got off to a rocky start as Alonso described the Honda Power Unit as a “GP2 Engine. 

2016

2016 saw steady improvement but Button scored points on only seven occasions finishing 15th whilst Alonso for all his talent could only manage 10th. However in November of that year McLaren employed Zak Brown as Executive Director of McLaren Technology Group, and he’d go on to make a big impact a few years down the line.

2017

2017 saw frustrations grow further as their displays regressed and the reliability of the Honda power unit came under scrutiny. Performances on the track only got worse than the previous season with Alonso and now Stoffel Vandoorne struggling. Both cars were forced to retire in China and Monaco, and the pair even failed to start on two occasions. They finished 15th and 16th in the Drivers’ Championship and ninth in the Constructors. 

2018

2018 saw McLaren welcome in a new era as they decided to move on from Honda engines and chose Renault to power the MCL33. The year started with so much promise for Alonso, finishing fifth at the season opener in Australia and Vandoorne was ninth. On top of this the Spaniard was  in the points at each of the first five races but performances and reliability soon fell off. The big bonus from that season was Brown becoming the Chief Executive Officer of McLaren Racing and over the next two seasons he’d oversee a huge upturn in results. 

2019

2019 saw the team enter with an entirely new lineup. Carlos Sainz arrived from Renault and Lando Norris, earned a promotion to the team. Another big signing was that of Andreas Seidl who was appointed as team principal on January 10th but he didn’t start until May. McLaren were the surprise package, with Sainz and Norris proving to be a brilliant pair, and the former even scored a podium in Brazil. They managed to finish fourth, scoring a huge 83 points more than 2018. 

2020

2020 was set to be even more of a battle with McLaren, Aston Martin, Renault and Ferrari all battling it out for midfield supremacy. They couldn’t have started the season off in a better way. Lando Norris secured his first ever podium at the delayed Austrian Grand Prix, and Sainz also scored a P3 finish at Monza. The fight would go down to the wire, but they defended their best of the rest crown, scoring over 200 points. 

And now it’s 2021, Sainz has moved on to Ferrari with Daniel Ricciardo arriving from Renault. They’ve launched their MCL35M which they hope will help them take the next step and challenge for podiums and wins on a regular basis.