McLaren have a new upgraded floor prepared, but the team will not rush to apply it to the MCL38.
McLaren reveal that the team will hold back on applying a new upgraded floor to its MCL38. The Woking team believes that it would risk downgrading the car – which has happened to its rivals.
The British team are in a title fight against Red Bull, finding themselves only eight points behind the Austrian team in the contructors’ championship. Lando Norris also has a chance to win the drivers’ championship, with Red Bull and Max Verstappen’s struggles.
The performance of the cars has been the closest it has been since the introduction of the ground-effect cars. Red Bull recently encountered balance issues with the RB20 after upgrades were applied to the car.
Mercedes encountered the same problem also with its new floor, resulting in McLaren hesitating to apply its new floor to the MCL38.
Ferrari were hit with a high-speed bouncing issue with its new floor that arrived in Spain. However, the Scuderia have since managed to get on top of the problem with its most recent upgrades.
Risk of trouble minamilised
McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella believes his team has avoided issues due to them only introducing one major upgrade. The Italian believes that it has reduced the risk of sudden issues occurring.
Stella confirmed that work was being done at the factory on making an upgraded floor. However, the Woking team will wait until the parts are fully understood by the team before applying them to the car.
“We haven’t brought a significant upgrade since Miami,” the Italian said about how the team has not managed to ‘downgrade’ its car.
“The next relevant upgrade, not as big as Miami, was in Zandvoort, and it didn’t involve the [whole] floor – it was just a detail. It was some other areas of the car.”
Stella further ocnfirmed McLaren’s cautious approach to applying upgrades to the MCL38 by saying:
“But there’s a reason why we haven’t brought some upgrades�– because we see that, had we pressed the go button, we might have had some doubts when these parts were tested full-scale on the real car.
“So we are taking our time to convince ourself that the development is mature to be taken trackside.”
With Norris’ dominant win in Zandvoort and a front row lockout in Monza, Stella believes the team can be quick at any race track.
Formula 1 heads to Azerbaijan for the next round of the championship. Baku is a track that can create an anomaly for the performance of cars.
Feature Image Credit: Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images