McLaren, no B version like Ferrari at the tests: “It would complicate things”

McLaren dismantles the collective certainty according to which all the teams will approach the tests with an approximate configuration, and then present themselves in Australia with an advanced version. Ferrari, for example, is one of this trend, with Vasseur stating last December that “everyone will do it”, considering that at the first tests “the most important thing is to accumulate kilometres, not to chase performance”. In this, however, the world champions go against the grain, focusing on alternative development planning. McLaren: the outfit for Melbourne in Spain The topic emerged during a press conference organized by the Woking team with some sector publications, including FormulaPassion. Chief Designer Rob Marshall expressed himself on the subject: “I think what you will see between Barcelona and Melbourne will probably be almost what we will bring to the first race. Our efforts will be directed towards understanding this package and we must also consider what the competition will be working on. We must be inspired by what others may or may not achieve and what they could show us”. In a season in which the development curve promises to be extremely steep and in which the bottleneck for updates will be the cost cap, McLaren prefers to conserve its financial resources for when it has gained a better understanding of the MCL40 after testing. “We’re going to be really focused on understanding this car,” Marshall continues. “It’s all very complicated, it’s all new. There’s a lot of new stuff that we have to get used to. Bringing a lot of updates at the beginning would complicate things. I think it’s better to understand our platform before we think about modifying it without having already put the wheels on the ground.” Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images The unknowns around aerodynamics Mark Temple, Technical Director of Performance, went into more detail on the technical areas where McLaren is keen to find answers: “There are aspects of these new regulations that make aerodynamics more complicated and difficult to predict on track. Part of this is because we are still relatively early in a regulatory cycle. Until we go out on track and see the discrepancies between what our instruments predict and what we we observe in reality, it is difficult to be confident in one’s own means”. McLaren remains faithful to the approach that has distinguished it in recent years, investing in the fundamentals and understanding the basic aspects, so as to strengthen the development methodologies and subsequently be able to bring updates continuously. Adds Temple: “Part of the reason we’re excited about going to the track is because we’ll finally see what those differences are, we’ll have more certainty about things that perhaps remain unknowns at the moment, and we’ll understand how to incorporate these discoveries into our development further down the line.” Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images Small changes expected Precisely the decision not to overturn the car until the first race pushed McLaren to delay the project resolution as much as possible, so much so that they planned not to run before the second day of testing. However, this does not mean that there will be no news on the MCL40, as Andrea Stella reveals: “Obviously, I believe there will be updates for practically every car between the Barcelona tests and the first race. However, we thought that in the economy of the season it was important to start with a car with the most competitive package possible. This is why we pushed the timing to the limit.”