McLaren driver Lando Norris was the talk of the town based on his phenomenal podium finish at the British Grand Prix, but the resources at his disposal were in stark contrast to fellow teammate Oscar Piastri.
Norris showed great skill en route a podium finish at Silverstone, but McLaren chief engineer Gary Anderson has admitted that the British driver was the only one who got additional upgrades ahead of the race.
The reputed car designer elaborated on how Norris made the most of his upgrade.
“The thing that McLaren seems to have done is put the cart before the horse with its latest upgrade package,” Anderson said.
“It got the main aerodynamic surfaces, including the sidepods and underfloor, developed and on the car for the previous race in Austria before introducing the new front wing at the British Grand Prix.
“This improved the performance of all those previous developments slightly, on Lando Norris’s car with it arriving on teammate Oscar Piastri’s car at the Hungarian GP.”
Anderson went on to explain what the new wing can mean from the perspective of McLaren and whether the team can expect more such results in the future.
“The wing is nothing dramatic, but it does prove that there is more than one development direction in F1,” he said.
“Where Mercedes introduced a small tunnel at the outboard end, McLaren has eliminated it.
“The trailing edge of the rear flap is also more uniform in its trim line. Yes, this will alter from circuit to circuit depending on the downforce levels, but if you have a good package around Silverstone – which is a ‘Mr Average Downforce’ circuit – it normally transfers fairly well to other circuits.”
Anderson expressed how he himself didn’t want to completely alter the wing profile of the car.
“I have never been a fan of altering a wing profile aggressively as it generates crossflow and that can be different between the top surface, which has higher than ambient pressure on it, and the lower surface, which has lower than ambient pressure on it,” he said.
“So where this flow meets up at the trailing edge it can set up vortices. If you want them, fine, but you need to know about them and what other aero surfaces further rearward they are influencing.”
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