Key claims that Red Bull and Ferrari have “excellently” exploited the 2022 rules

The technical director of McLaren was taken aback by how experienced team were able to take advantage of the regulations and establish a solid speed advantage.

Red Bull and Ferrari have done a “great job” of taking advantage of the 2022 F1 regulations, according to McLaren Technical Director James Key, who also complimented their efforts.

This year’s cars were modified to simplify it for the field to compete against one another, which reduced lap times when compared to prior years.

Max Verstappen has won five straight races for Red Bull, and Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have combined for Ferrari’s most pole positions thus far this season, giving them a significant advantage over the rest of the competition.

Key commended McLaren’s efforts thus far in creating cars that find “that extra bit of performance” in comparison to rivals in an interview.

“I suppose I am a little surprised at how two teams have been able to find that extra bit of performance compared to everyone else,” he said.

“It was a tighter field at the beginning of the season, but it’s beginning to stretch out now, and I have to say, Ferrari and Red Bull have done an excellent job of exploiting more.

“It shows that even within a cost cap, if you’re a big team with an extensive infrastructure and a lot of knowledge and methodology built over many years, it still very much counts.

“It’s a level playing field in terms of the budget we’ve got, but it’s not in terms of where we’re all coming from – that gives us an excellent reference point to aspire to.”

Key: 2022 car performance will be “quite close” to that of 2021

Although lap times have decreased compared to prior years as a result of the 2022 cars’ revised aerodynamics, Key claims that the reduction is not as significant as first expected.

He added: “What has surprised me is that, in theory, with the same chassis performance, the 2022 cars should be two seconds slower than the 2021 cars, but that hasn’t been the case.”

“Cars are getting very close to ’21 performance levels now, and some have already achieved it, which reflects the quality of the teams we have in this sport.”

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