McLaren halts further MCL60 development: 'New car in wind tunnel'
F1 News
- Ludo van Denderen
McLaren has made huge strides in the last few weeks before the summer break. Although the team did not finish the Belgian Grand Prix on the podium for a third consecutive time (although Oscar Piastri grabbed spot two in the Sprint), the progress shown compared to the start of the season is evident. Whether more such big improvements are going to be seen after the break remains to be seen. Indeed, McLaren announced that it is stopping further development of the MCL60. Only smaller updates are yet to come.
For years, McLaren used Toyota's (seriously outdated) wind tunnel, which is located in Cologne, Germany. Recently, it has been working hard to build its own wind tunnel in Woking, England. This has now been completed. Immediately after the Belgian Grand Prix, McLaren team boss Andrea Stella looked ahead to the commissioning of the wind tunnel. "So the plan is to actually start first week of August, new car in the wind tunnel. Yeah first week of august is pretty much… I’ve been saying this for like some time that it looks like it is yeah in a few days", Stella laughed in conversation with the media, including GPblog.
Further development of MCL60 over
For McLaren, that moment is more than a move, the Italian points out. "We will leave working on the old car as we leave the Toyota wind tunnel, we will not run the old car in the new wind tunnel. (...) What we are working on on this year's car, a lot of things are relevant for next year but this year's model will not be put in the new wind tunnel. The new wind tunnel will only have next year's model."
The team of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri does not say there are no more updates to come. According to Stella, McLaren will start at Zandvoort with updates to the floor and bonnet of the McLaren. A week later, the car of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will feature a new wing package, specially designed for tracks where low downforce is driven. These are all changes that had been in the pipeline for some time.
Moreover, it is not as if structural components for next year are already going to be tested on the cars this season. "There's not much you can develop that you can apply to this year's car because things are very interlinked entangled so it's very difficult to have a solution that works. Even if it's a local solution that work on next year's car and then you can apply to this year's car. You would certainly consider that as kind of a test item like let's see if it works but even to prepare a test item it means that somebody will have to release it, draw it, produce it, in a period in which we are completely flat out on next year's car so i see it unlikely," Stella said.