McLaren has decided to ditch one of its major upgrades for this weekend’s Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix, after what Lando Norris described as a “questionable” first outing.
The Woking-based squad entered this weekend’s fifth round of the World Championship buoyed by significant improvements at the previous round in Miami, with Norris taking Sprint victory and second place in the Grand Prix.
Like many of its rivals, McLaren’s MCL40 broke cover in Montreal with a few facelifts, namely its front wing, which, as per the FIA’s entry sheet, was deployed to create “better flow conditioning across the operating range resulting in improved aerodynamic load delivery”.
The wing was debuted by Norris in FP1, with teammate Oscar Piastri having it bolted to his MCL40 later in the hour.
But when Sprint Qualifying arrived two-and-a-half hours later, the previous wing design made a return on both cars.
Norris and Piastri qualified third and fourth respectively, both a shade over three tenths off George Russell’s pole time, having been 1.3 and 1.5s seconds adrift of the fastest time in practice.
“We found during the session that the front wing wasn’t quite delivering what we expected and we ultimately took the call to run the previous specification front wing, which gave the drivers more confidence and allowed them to unlock more performance,” explained Technical Director for Engineering, Neil Houldey.
L: The MCL40’s new front wing design. R: The original design, fitted back to the car for Sprint Qualifying
McLaren to ‘probably reintroduce’ front wing in Europe
Norris was confident of more being extracted out of the car, and intimated that the front wing would be given another run out either at the next round in Monaco, or the round after, in Barclona.
“Some things are maybe a bit more questionable,” he said of the front wing, “and we probably need just more time to review things and look back, especially because it’s such a weird track.
“It’s so low grip, you’re bouncing off kerbs and stuff, so you’re not getting kind of a true representation of everything, and it’s hard to back it up with what we have in the wind tunnel.
“We need a bit more time with some bits, and I will probably reintroduce some of them next weekend, or in Barcelona.
“But at the same time, the rest of the car was clearly working well, and I felt confident in Q3, especially on the soft, which would be the first time this weekend that I felt that confidence.
“A good step forward and we’ll see what we can improve going into tomorrow.”
McLaren will be hopeful of utilising what it has to bring the fight to Mercedes, the German marque looking consistently fast after having brought its own raft of upgrades.
READ MORE – Mercedes brings major and extensive upgrades for F1 Canadian GP
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