McLaren F1 Faces Quandary on Swift Upgrades

McLaren F1 deliberates the timing of new upgrades, weighing immediate implementation against strategic planning.

McLaren F1 still has upgrades to bring to its MCL38, but the team hesitates to introduce them as soon as possible. Given its recent performances, the Woking team has the opportunity to refine the arrival of its new features, as explained by its director, Andrea Stella.

“Honestly, that was one of my thoughts after the race,” Stella stated. “We have things in preparation and when you have this kind of track performance, you can always approach things from a cautious development standpoint. But we need to trust the process.”

“We need to trust the way we have worked so far. I’ve said before that we have taken our time to ensure that once we hit the track, we have exercised due diligence. So, I don’t think this will change our plans.”

Rob Marshall, the chief designer, explains that there are benefits to waiting to have several new parts at once: “It’s about continuously seeking aerodynamic downforce. We kind of like to assemble the pieces and launch them in one big go. So far, we have just been gathering these elements.”

“At some point, I hope we will have another improvement to make. In a way, it’s good to bring many small improvements all the time, somewhat like our beam wing this weekend. But there also comes a time when you have to hang on a bit waiting for a series of improvements to arrive simultaneously.”

“The advantage is that often the parts do not combine very well, or not as well as we think. If you roll them out all at once, this kind of combination of parts has been studied by CFD, developed, and tested in the wind tunnel together, so you can be more certain that this combination of parts works well together.”

“Whereas if you proceed little by little, you might introduce an improvement on one part, then work on another part and find that it is somewhat compromised by the previous modification.”