McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh has admitted that the exhausts seen on the MP4-27 during its launch in Woking last week, were in fact fake outlets.
Teams often disguise parts of their cars by moulding fake parts from plastic, rather than carbon fibre, in an attempt to confuse their rivals or hide unique innovations.
“The exhaust was made of plastic, you won’t see those components in that form again,” he told Auto Motor und Sport.
“The car will look different at Jerez to what it looked last week, and a lot different in Australia.”
During the cars shake down at the weekend, in which Oliver Turvey was behind the wheel, Whitmarsh also admitted that they tested a series of new, unseen parts.
“At the weekend at Idiada we did an aero test where we had a series of news parts that were not on the car at Woking.”
