Lando Norris achieved fourth place in Spielberg with an update package and thus by far the best McLaren result of the 2023 Formula 1 season so far. The team from Woking had brought a new underbody and new parts for the body to Austria.
“Underbody and bodywork work together aerodynamically in this new generation of vehicles,” explains team boss Andrea Stella and reveals: “With this change, the downforce is essentially increased with the same air resistance. We have achieved that with this package.”
What is amazing is the big step that McLaren has taken. Because while it’s no secret that the underbody plays a big part in current-gen cars, it’s also been claimed in the past that updates to the bodywork don’t bring huge leaps in performance.
“If there is a team that says that the bodywork and the sidepods don’t play a role in the current regulations, then they have a long nose like Pinocchio,” grins Stella and explains: “Every aerodynamicist knows from simulations, wind tunnels and measurement data on the suggest that the two things actually work together.”
That’s why at the beginning of the new rules in the 2022 season you saw many different solutions for the side boxes, “even if it now looks like all teams are more or less converging in the same direction,” says Stella.
McLaren is sticking to the update plan
With regard to the own package that McLaren brought to the car in Spielberg, the team boss explains with satisfaction: “The measurement data correspond to our expectations, which is very positive and means that this is a good platform for further development.”
“In Formula 1 it’s always important that you can trust your development tools. Otherwise you can get very far with CFD and in the wind tunnel and then when things don’t correlate you’re back at the beginning with a lot of doubts,” says Stella .
But because the parts have behaved as predicted, McLaren will continue to pursue its update schedule. Stella explains: “In the UK we will also upgrade the other car.” Because in Spielberg only Lando Norris initially had the new parts available.
Oscar Piastri can now also enjoy Silverstone. “And then we’re going to add some more elements that work with the bodywork and the underbody,” says Stella, who explains they’re going to rework “pretty much all the aerodynamic components” step by step.
“As soon as they are available, they will be brought to the car,” he announces. There should already be more new parts in Silverstone, and even more so in Hungary. And McLaren wants to upgrade again later in the season, which Stella says is quite normal.
“We’ve seen that even under the cost cap, there are continual upgrades in pretty much every area of the car, as has been the case in the past,” explains Stella. And that will be no different at McLaren.