Andreas Seidl cautiously optimistic about McLaren 2020 chances

McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl is looking forward to his first full season with the team - the German having joined the team in May of 2019.

Having led McLaren to their best placed finish to a year since 2014, Seidl expressed pride in his team at the launch of the MCL35 and, with his own leadership team now in place, expressed confidence in what the team can achieve in the coming campaign.

"I have to say, it feels simply great to be a part of this McLaren racing team today, standing next to our MCL35 and I really want to take the opportunity as well to thank every single member of the team for all of the hard work over the last 12-months to get this baby here on stage today," said team principal Andreas Seidl.

"I'm very happy with the progress we could make last year. We simply kept improving race by race. I'm very happy with my leadership team being in place now - with James Key as technical director, Piers Thynne as Production Director and Andrea Stella as Racing Director.

"We have a clear plan in place of how we want to approach the future and now it's simply important to keep this positive momentum up and keep improving as a team."

Despite his confidence in the ability of McLaren, Seidl was careful to urge fans to be cautious in their expectations of what can be achieved in 2019, the German knowing that success in Formula One can go just as quickly as it appears.

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"I think it's important to not get carried away with what we achieved last year," continued Seidl. "It was great. It's a reset back to zero again for every team in the pitlane.

"Everyone is having the same ambitious targets. Everyone is working as hard as we do as well.

"For me, it's simply important to focus on ourselves. I'm very happy with what I have seen in terms of the development of the car over the winter, so I think we can be quite optimistic going into the new season but at the same time we need to be realistic as well."

Chief executive officer of McLaren Racing Zak Brown was equal in his cautious optimism ahead of 2020, adding, "It's always great to see the start of the season and the work of 800 men and women coming together to develop this beautiful race car and I'm very excited.

"Much as Andreas and his team have done an outstanding job coming out of last year where we are, I think, just getting started on our trajectory back to the front."

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