McLaren’s decision to go ahead and modify its rear wing design to remove its 'mini-DRS' concept has been a huge talking point at Formula 1’s Singapore Grand Prix.
With F1’s title battle between the Woking-based squad, Red Bull and Ferrari hotting up and so little separating them, any small tweak in each of their performance profiles could have a big impact on the final outcome.
But while it seems that McLaren’s rivals have scored an early win in forcing the FIA’s hand to get involved in the rear wing matter, the reality is that the end result will not actually change much over the final stages of the season.
Low drag configuration
What is critical to understand about the row over McLaren’s rear wing is that this is not a design idea that has been on the car since the beginning of the season – nor indeed something that was ever going to run at every race.
The 'mini-DRS' was an idea that appears only to have been introduced at the Belgian Grand Prix before the summer break, and was only ever planned to be utilised at low downforce/drag circuits.
It was something that was specifically engineered into what is known as its low-drag wing, rather than being an idea that was utilised on its other downforce level specifications.
At the Singapore Grand Prix, for example, McLaren is using its high-downforce wing, which does not feature the concept. The FIA’s intervention will therefore have zero impact on how it performs around the Marina Bay circuit.
In McLaren’s official documentation from Spa relating to the wing choice used in Baku, McLaren had said: “In anticipation of high isochronal circuits, a less loaded rear wing assembly is introduced for this event, with the aim of reducing drag efficiently.”
That wing has been used in Belgium, Monza and Azerbaijan – with examination of onboard footage from each of those races showing the same upper element flexing that many only became alerted to last weekend.
What is bad news for McLaren’s rivals in their hopes that losing the 'mini-DRS' benefit would dramatically impact the squad’s title push is that the wing was only ever likely to return at one other venue this year – the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
The long straights on that circuit demand a return to a low-drag configuration. The rest of the season of the season can be divided up into medium downforce (Austin, Brazil, Qatar and Abu Dhabi) or high downforce (Singapore and Mexico) levels.
This means that whatever the benefit of the impact of McLaren’s 'mini-DRS' is, it will only miss it at just one of the remaining seven races.
Maximising the gains
Had rivals become more aware of the McLaren wing in Belgium, and pushed the FIA to take a closer look during the summer break, then it would have had an impact for Italy and Baku too – which could have changed the outcome of two races.
It is a situation that Ferrari is well aware of, with Maranello team principal Fred Vasseur saying there was a degree of annoyance that the benefit of the 'mini DRS' has already been reaped by McLaren.
“It's a bit frustrating when, if you remember perfectly the situation in Monza, we had five cars in two hundredths of a second [actually 0.075s],” he said.
“You can move from P1, P2 to P5 or P6 for two hundredths of seconds. In Baku, we arrived 10 laps in a row side by side [in] Turn 1. You can imagine that we have a bit of frustration.”
From McLaren’s perspective, there will likely be some small annoyance that its genius trick has been exposed – but equally it will take heart that it made hay while the sun shone and got some strong results at low-drag venues where it had particularly struggled in previous years.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, McLaren CEO Zak Brown said: “These Formula 1 engineers are very clever, they have certainly had some pretty awesome race cars the last decade, and it has passed the test. So good on our team for coming up with something that is high-performance.
“I think it is great for the championship. We are running at the front and there are going to be things that are clearly working well on our race car and everyone else will be trying to speed up and slow us down at the same time. Welcome to Formula 1.”
FIA analysis
What will be interesting now is whether McLaren feels that it being singled out for attention on its rear wing is unfair or not.
While it has been under the spotlight since Baku for the behaviour of its rear wing, sources have indicated that it has also been keeping a close eye on rival designs and feels that some of those may be pushing the boundaries of the regulations too.
Sources stated that it feels that at least two other teams may be running clever aeroelasticity tricks – involving either the slot gap or rotation of the entire rear wing structure.
It was notable that in McLaren’s statement, it made reference to its hope that the FIA had a look elsewhere in the pitlane.
“We would also expect the FIA to have similar conversations with other teams in relation to the compliance of their rear wings,” it said.
