McLaren must hit the ground running this season - Seidl

Andreas Seidl has called on McLaren to be competitive from the first race of the season despite the difficulties associated with integrating a new power unit and bringing Daniel Ricciardo into the fold.

Ahead of the new campaign McLaren is in the throes of changing power unit supplier from Renault to Mercedes, while Ricciardo has joined the team from Renault.

After finishing third in last season's constructors' standings, McLaren is naturally keen to retain its status behind only Mercedes and Red Bull.

“Our objective is clear," said Seidl. "With the plan we have in place up to the first race, not only with the integration of the Mercedes power unit but also with Daniel, we obviously want to be competitive again from the first race onwards.

“We have a very talented team, a very committed team with a lot of experience. Our colleagues from Brixworth [Mercedes High Performance Powertrains] are obviously very experienced as well, Daniel is an experienced driver."

The change of power unit supplier to Mercedes is McLaren's third since leaving the German manufacturer in 2015.

He added: “We are aware of the challenge but at the same time I’m quite confident that we can overcome this challenge over the winter and that we can be in good shape from the first outing.”

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