McLaren believes that the reduction in wind tunnel time that it faces as a result of winning the Formula 1 constructors’ championship will not be as big a handicap as some think.
The Woking-based outfit’s triumph in last weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix helped to secure its first teams’ title since 1998, handing the team a good boost in commercial rights income.
But one of the downsides of ending the year on top is that the squad also faces having the least aerodynamic testing from the start of next year – which is exactly the moment when teams begin work on their 2026 car design.
Formula 1’s sporting rules include what is known as the Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions, which details a sliding scale of wind tunnel time and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) capacity that squads are allowed.
The team that finishes first in the championship starts with 70% of the baseline allowance, in 5% increments up to the 115% multiplier for finishing 10th.
But while this in theory puts McLaren slightly on the back foot compared to main rivals Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes, team principal Andrea Stella thinks that his outfit can overcome any deficit it faces.
He suggests that what teams get out of their aerodynamic testing goes far beyond just the total amount of hours that they are allowed.
Speaking about the reduction in its running, Stella said: “You would always take P1 in the championship and then see how you can improve your efficiency in terms of aerodynamic development in the combination of CFD and wind tunnel time, because the two things are compounded.”
Stella suggested that McLaren having its own wind tunnel back on its Woking base this year, compared to its previous use of Toyota’s facility in Cologne, was already a big step in improving its work efficiency.
“The new wind tunnel is definitely a big step forward,” he added. “But the big step forward is, above all, from a logistical point of view.
“I always stress that last year, both the upgrades in Austin and Singapore were designed and developed at the Toyota wind tunnel. But to develop things at the Toyota wind tunnel, you have the part ready, and then it's tested two days after just because of the shipment [timing].
“Now, we have the part ready, and it's tested two hours after, so you just gain so much efficiency.
“But in reality, chasing efficiency is not only thanks to the wind tunnel, but is in the whole approach to aerodynamic development.
“And I have to say that we have seen – we have experienced ourselves – that even if you have more and more restrictions, from a development point of view, the way you generate the knowledge, the efficiency, is by far the most important thing.”
With teams now chasing such marginal gains in a wind tunnel, and one of the keys being in ensuring better-than-ever correlation between simulations and the real world, Stella said that the amount of wind tunnel time that teams had was not the deciding factor.
“It's not because I have three times the wind tunnel time I necessarily will develop the car three times faster, that's not the case,” he said.
“I think we have seen that this year very well, because there were developments taken trackside by some teams that not necessarily became something that was a progress.
“It's not necessarily about quantity; we are very much investing on the quality of the development.”
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