The Macarena and the Ferrari exhaust tease McLaren, Marshall: “Let’s look at everything”

Ferrari has once again caught the attention of its rivals. Solutions such as the inverted mobile wing or the flap behind the exhaust terminal have aroused the interest of the competition, including McLaren, which deliberately let itself be inspired by its opponents before introducing the developments. The world champions, however, will not be able to replicate every innovation of the competition, both due to the limits of the regulation and the lack of the necessary knowledge. Promising Ferrari exhaust Rob Marshall, Chief Technical Officer and Chief Designer of McLaren, expressed his opinion on the topic, reviewing the most intriguing solutions seen so far: “The Audi’s bellies are interesting. Clearly, they have thought of a solution that no one has anything similar to. The Aston Martin has an interesting suspension geometry. The rear is ambitious and we can clearly guess what the purpose is. The front suspension is also very interesting, perhaps it is inspired by something we did last year.” Among those who have caught Marshall’s attention is also the Scuderia from Maranello: “Then there are things like the rear wing of the Ferrari. They have also developed an interesting solution with the exhaust terminal, which everyone has looked at carefully. It seems promising.” Overall, the most important finding from the first races was that the new regulations offer more freedom than previously thought: “There are different front wing geometries between the teams. Everyone thought that the wings would all be the same, but that’s not the case at all. Every car has something that, when you look at it, you realize is completely different from what we were thinking about. Overall, I’d say that [i regolamenti] they are not at all as prescriptive as we thought they would be.” The difficulty of copying When asked directly about the possibility for McLaren to replicate Ferrari’s solutions, Rob Marshall remained vague: “We look at everything. Reading the regulations, some things are closed to us, others remain open and still others are limited by the changes you would have to make to the architecture of the car or by certain things that have to do with the engine. However, we analyze everything at a certain level. Some things end up being tested on the CFD or in the wind tunnel, while others remain simple experiments to see whether they would be good for us or not”. The flap behind the exhaust of the SF-26 is one of the solutions not easily copied by the competition. In fact, by regulation, each aerofoil in that area must respect a certain distance from the wheel axis, requiring a particular installation of the differential. Furthermore, Ferrari’s FTM also impacts the pressure of the exhaust gases and therefore also on the engine. In general, however, replicating a competition’s solution is never easy for another reason. Qian Jun/MB Media/Getty Images “It’s one thing to copy, it’s another to try to understand how something works or what the other team is trying to do,” specifies the McLaren Chief Designer. “Here’s the difficulty, because you can copy what others have, but in fact you don’t have their knowledge. If you do your research, maybe you develop the same skills that others have, but because you were inspired, you were able to do it faster. I think it’s part of Formula 1. There are things you invent on your own that you’re probably more proud of than things you’ve copied and there are things that come to your mind while you’re bathing that no one wants to copy,” concludes Marshall.