McLaren

After its much-anticipated split with Honda, McLaren enters 2018 with nowhere to hide and only itself to blame should things go awry.

Haydn Cobb_1

21 Mar 2018

McLaren F1 Team

GP Starts: 821
Wins: 182
Pole Positions: 155
Fastest Laps: 155
Drivers’ Championships: 12
Constructors’ Championships: 8

Drivers

2. Stoffel Vandoorne BEL
14. Fernando Alonso ESP

2017 in review – A third year of disaster for McLaren-Honda marked the end of that relationship with Fernando Alonso pushed to the point of leaving the team altogether. Alonso’s frustrations were quelled with a debut at the Indianapolis 500 in a McLaren-Honda-Andretti deal engineered by Zak Brown. Despite the increased media attention, positive and negative, McLaren suffered its joint-worst F1 campaign scoring just three points more than its worst season in 2015 and finishing second bottom in the teams’ standings.

What’s changed for 2018? – Purely and simply, the engine. After ditching Honda, McLaren secured a three-year deal with Renault with Alonso instantly targeting the podium having seen the Renault-powered Red Bull win in 2017. An unchanged driver line-up and a strong car and chassis package the emphasis on its 2018 gains solely on Renault.

Key man – Fernando Alonso. After locking down the two-time F1 world champion to a new contract the Spaniard will aim to lead McLaren’s charge back up the grid in 2018 aided by his previous strong relationship with Renault. Alonso will complete a dual campaign in F1 with McLaren and in WEC with Toyota and fears of burnout have been shot down by the Spanish driver but concerns will remain, especially around the five consecutive race weekends spanning from the Canadian Grand Prix in early June to the British Grand Prix a month later with Le Mans, the French and the Austrian F1 races sandwiched in between.

Constructors’ Championship prediction – 5th