The long flight to Melbourne gives everyone a chance for reflection. It’s two years since we were last in Australia. The world has changed since then, and F1 has moved in step. All sorts of things – from facemasks to racing at Imola – have been assimilated and now pass as normal… but going back to the place we were when the pandemic was declared inevitably revisits some of it.

Happily, Melbourne and the Australian Grand Prix felt much as they ever do. Hugely enthusiastic, extremely welcoming and eager to support the sport… though we did have a few advantages in that regard this year…

What blew everyone else away was the staggering level of support for Daniel and for the team around Albert Park, and out in the wider city. 

It shouldn’t be a new sensation – the team, after all, had raced with Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz in Spain, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Lando at Silverstone, but the sheer volume of papaya around Melbourne was both eye-opening and humbling (when it wasn’t making us laugh).

It doesn’t create any additional pressure, because the team is more than capable of piling that on itself… but certainly there was a great deal of enthusiasm to get going and have a good weekend. 

Having arrived a little earlier than would be the case for a normal race, the drivers did their track walks on Wednesday, eager to see how the track changes looked down on the ground. Daniel had been one of the drivers consulted in 2019, when the alternations were planned. His stated aim was to ‘take all the credit if it’s an improvement; blame Lewis if it isn’t.” After seeing the track, he was confident he’d be taking credit – and told pretty much everyone in Albert Park.

The Friday practice sessions were… chaotic – but not for us. Albert Park hadn’t changed that much: the grip was still low, the walls loomed large and the drivers were of the opinion that, despite the freshly laid surface, it still had quite a few bumps, plus a prominently crown that takes on extra significance with this generation of cars running very low to the ground. We had red flags in both sessions, but they didn’t have a huge affect on our run plans, coming either when the cars were in the garage undergoing set-up changes, or at the very end of runs. The end result was a very smooth Friday. Lando finished the sessions P5 and P8, Daniel P8 and P10, and the car looked good. Lando said it was the best Friday so far of the young season, but qualified that by saying we were grading on a fairly shallow curve. “Not amazing but decent,” was his conclusion.

Final practice on Saturday afternoon went better still, with Daniel P6 and Lando finishing the session in P1. It was, however, quite the scramble at the start of the session, with Race Control posting notice they were removing one of the DRS zones.

The team soon had a handle on their new requirements, and the session went relatively smoothly – despite another red flag. The times were slightly misleading. The Albert Park surface was evolving rapidly as more rubber went down and, by virtue of doing their qualifying sims late in the session, the drivers got the best of the conditions. It was, however, better to be at the top than the bottom, and nice for the team to have to go out and do a little bit of expectation management… not that our fans were particularly interested in hearing about rapidly improving grip levels…

We hadn’t made a Q3 session so far this year – but expectations going into the session were that’s we’d be able to get that particular monkey off our backs.

Quali took rather longer than anticipated thanks to red flags in Q1 and Q3. We’re in Melbourne a few weeks later than usual and at times it had a distinctly autumnal feel to it. The big problem, however, was the angle of the setting sun. With the sessions running late, the drivers were blinded. Lando made it through to Q3 with P7 and P6 in the preceding sessions, and dragged every last ounce of performance out of the car to qualify P4. Daniel’s sessions were a little more fraught, but he made it through as well, with P12 and P9, before qualifying P7.

Race day was warmer and brighter than the rest of the weekend. A mammoth crowd of 128,000 took the weekend total to a gargantuan 419,000. The race itself started an hour earlier than qualifying, which got rid of the glare – though there was a definite papaya hue to the grandstands – all of which was enthusiastically relayed back from the trackside team to their colleagues in Mission Control, many of whom has come to work shortly after midnight and were practicing a different sort of glare when told how nice and sunny it was in Melbourne.

That said… there was a real sense of optimism in the camp – and through our fanbase. 

Our race itself was, in the best way possible, unspectacular. Lando was boxed in at the first corner and dropped back to P6, while Daniel held P7. They ran a regulation one-stop race that might have got a little ticklish were it not for an early Safety Car effectively neutralising the few drivers trying the alternative strategy.

Having done the fastest pit-stops at the two previous races, the pit-crew did immaculate work once again – but had to settle for the second and third fastest times. That was particularly satisfying given the difficulties both drivers expressed across the weekend with getting into the pit-box. Lots of practice, however, improved the situation, and, remarkably, both cars had exactly the same stationary time: 2.42 seconds. We did say we wanted the crew to concentrate on consistency…

Back on track, both drivers gained a place when Max Verstappen retired from P2, and spent the second half of the grand prix running in no-man’s land. Not really in touch with the front runner but equally not threatened by anyone behind.

There was a little bit of drama with a problem on Lando’s car at the closing stages of the race. Happily however, we crossed the line without issue, and the team recorded its first double-points finish and Daniel’s first points of the season. For all the trials and tribulations of the last few weeks, we’re now P4 in the Constructors’ Championship – exactly where we finished 2021. It's going to be a long road ahead, but for now, things are looking up.

Join the team

McLaren Plus is our free-to-join fan loyalty programme, bringing McLaren fans closer to the team with the most inclusive, rewarding and open-to-all fan programmes in motorsport.

Sign up now, or current members can amend their details in the form below if necessary.