Seidl: McLaren must remain patient despite Australian GP progress

McLaren started the season well off the pace in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, with both of its drivers Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo unable to get through to Q3.

In Melbourne the team's competitiveness improved as both drivers did qualify in the top 10, and then stayed there all race to score a big haul of points in fifth and sixth, bumping the team up to fourth in the constructors' championship.

Speaking after the race team boss Seidl said the Woking outfit had a "clear plan in place" to address its deficit to the leading teams but urged his team to remain patient as its recovery will not happen overnight and Albert Park was a circuit that suited the car well.

"It was important after realising that we are lacking performance that we did an analysis as quick as possible and the studies to work out how we can improve performance as quickly as possible," Seidl said.

"I'm very happy to say we have a clear plan in place now. What we need to do with the car in terms of making steps, in terms of performance, this will take a bit of time. We need to be patient, despite all the ambition. But the most important thing is we have a clear plan that we execute now."

The recovery process for any teams that have initially missed the mark with the new 2022 rules isn't being helped by F1's cost cap and its limit on windtunnel time, which means that they need to carefully consider when they will push out new updates and have to cherry pick development projects that are most likely to deliver gains.

"When this is happening exactly, I don't want to go into too much detail," Seidl said. "There are different parameters you have to manage.

"There's a cost cap you need to consider. There is the limited windtunnel time that you have nowadays that you need to consider. You have to package it a bit as well."

While Seidl didn't want to expand on where the team's MCL36 is lacking, he conceded that Melbourne's lack of high-speed corners and hard breaking zones helped McLaren perform better compared to some its midfield rivals.

"It's mainly down to three reasons," Seidl explained the team's improved form. "We bought some small upgrades here to the car which worked. The track layout suits our current package, a fluid layout.

"And we have simply learned again about the car in Jeddah and could apply the learnings here and that put us in a more competitive position, not just on one lap but also in the race.

"It's great motivation for the everyone at the team to keep working hard, because we are in a position now, moving forward with the current package, to fight for top 10 results.

"It is a step forward to where we began the season, but it's obviously not where we want to be as a team. Heads down, let's not get over excited, let's keep working hard."