McLaren has clarified why it abandoned a new front wing design after just one practice session at the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix.
Fresh from its mammoth upgrade package at Miami, McLaren brought a new front wing to Canada, with Lando Norris testing it throughout the first free practice session.
However, it was swiftly removed at the conclusion of FP1, with both cars returning to the old spec front wing, which was run for the rest of the weekend.
Sunday’s Grand Prix turned into a disaster for the team, as its ill-fated decision to start the race on intermediate tyres saw it fall back into the midfield.
Norris retired, while Piastri careered into the side of Alex Albon’s Williams, ruining his old spec front wing.
After the race, Team Principal Andrea Stella revealed the reason as to why the new design was abandoned after just one practice session.
““We knew that this front wing had some element of deviation from an aerodynamic point of view,” Stella said.
“So we’ve tested the wing. We want to repeat some testing and gain some further information.”
McLaren: new design “wouldn’t have been a game changer”
Stella also confirmed that initial data indicated that the design had a minimal impact on the performance of the MCL40 in Montreal.
“And also for this kind of circuit, the wing would have been better, but it wouldn’t have been a game changer.
“So before we adopted [it] in a sprint event, we wanted to be just more reassured that we understand the full extent of the changes we’re making on the car.
“While we’ve been pretty much always successful in the past, not necessarily the upgrades that we have taken to a certain event, we have introduced them for that event.
“Sometimes they were just exploratory and just to learn the correlation with our development tools.”
McLaren’s admission its new front wing design had a minimal aerodynamic improvement on the MCL40 could indicate the first chink in McLaren’s development armour.
Since 2023, it has been one of F1’s leaders of in-season car development, with a strong correlation between its wind tunnel and on-track results.
The Montreal front wing is a blip on its otherwise perfect record.
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