McLaren Formula 1 boss Andrea Stella has promised that some significant upgrades for the MCL38 will arrive after the summer break.
The Italian also insists that he’s been surprised by the car’s consistently competitive form in recent weeks given a relatively modest flow of new parts to the car relative to rivals.
Stella says that the team’s last major step was at the Miami GP back in May, although the team did for example have a revised front wing aimed at slow corner performance in Austria.
“Effectively, Red Bull have taken track side more developments so far in terms of physical parts delivered, when you look at the [FIA] submissions, than what we have done,” he said.
“I can talk for McLaren. We seem to be now in condition to cash in some of this development that we have accrued, and I would expect that for the second part of the season we will have, at multiple times, some new parts.
“In a way, I’m surprised that we’ve been so competitive, considering that from Miami onwards, we haven’t actually brought trackside many new parts.
“So it means that, obviously the Miami upgrade was big. But there’s some upgrades that will come in the second part of the season.”
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- New McLaren sidepods -> Miami
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- New McLaren inlet -> Miami
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- New McLaren Front Wing -> Austria
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- New McLaren Front Wing -> Austria
Stella admits that McLaren still isn’t where it wants to be in terms of its low-drag configuration for high-speed venues, indicating that helps to explain why the team had a difficult weekend at Spa.
Improving the car for that kind of venue remains a key goal for the team.
“I think we have gone 50% of the journey,” he said. “I’m more confident that at high downforce we have the car in in a good place, and the car does what we want in terms especially of aerodynamic behaviour.
“But we haven’t yet done a lot of development at lower drag levels. So to me, it’s not a surprise that in Belgium, we were not as competitive as Hungary, and it’s not a surprise that for the same or a little bit better top speed, still we were losing quite a bit in the second sector.
“It means that if we want to gain speed, we’ll give up quite a lot of grip. But I hope that in the future, possibly next year in Belgium, we have completed this quest to have the most efficient car, even when top speed is important.”
McLaren was third in the constructors’ championship when the ATR table was reset at the end of June, so until December 31 the team has more wind tunnel time and CFD usage than both Red Bull and Ferrari.
