How McLaren slashed Red Bull's DRS advantage at Zandvoort

Much of the discourse in the early part of 2023's Formula 1 season revolved around Red Bull's prowess in a straight line, particularly when its DRS was open, as the engineers based in its Milton Keynes HQ had appeared to find a way to dump even more drag when the rear wing element was cracked open.

When the intricacies of the design started to emerge, it appeared to be a simple philosophy: get the floor producing lots of rear-end downforce, run that with a slightly larger upper rear wing, and shrink the beam wing to a shallow single element. With all three parts combining to produce copious levels of downforce in the high-speed corners, the DRS could then be applied on the straights to kill a larger quantity of drag. The floor maintained the traction, but the complete rear wing was then operating at a snip of its total drag output to push the top speeds even higher.

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Naturally, others started to follow. McLaren saw that all was good in its own interpretation of the design last year, and started to consider ways of surpassing the innovator by increasing the overall efficiency.

That brings us to the here and now. McLaren's latest rear wing upgrade for the Dutch Grand Prix specifically targeted efficient downforce - in the paddock technical lexicon, the Zandvoort circuit is a "high-isochronal" layout, which in 'normal' English means that it rewards situations where the drag coefficient is kept as low as possible versus the coefficient of downforce. That's the aim for most circuits but, at slower circuits like Monaco, such restrictions are less important.

It's also going to help 'the DRS trick', as the aerodynamics are already operating at a level where the straightline speed is strong; if the aerodynamicists can fit a larger rear wing with minimal expense to drag, then the DRS is going to be even more effective. Although we've outlined the basics above, the application of DRS can also have a direct effect on the downforce-generating parts below it if the rear wing, beam wing, and diffuser are all linked together successfully.

Assuming the car is moving around a high-speed corner, where high levels of downforce are required to carry a wealth of speed into the corner, these three items contribute to a common wake pattern, a low-pressure area behind the car that can increase the acceleration of air underneath the car. Decoupling the rear wing from that with DRS cuts the strength of that pressure field, but by how much depends on the magnitude of the rear wing's effect. It's a design that works at its peak on the medium-speed circuits; the high-speed venues usually come with trimmed wings that reduce the DRS effect, and the approach to slow-speed courses puts less emphasis on efficiency.

Let's compare that to McLaren's performance at Hungary as - banking aside - they're not too different in nature: tight, technical layouts with two medium-to-short DRS zones.

Below is Norris versus Verstappen's speed traces in Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying from the start-finish straight into Turn 1, and from the entry of the kink after Turn 1 and into Turn 2.

With the old aero package, the McLaren demonstrated great traction coming out of the corners at the Hungaroring, but the Red Bull flexed a top speed advantage that benefitted it in the final third of the longer straights.

DRS was useable on both the start-finish straight and between Turns 1 and 2, both areas where the Red Bull was stronger. In comparing Max Verstappen's best qualifying lap of the Hungarian Grand Prix to Lando Norris', the top speed traces show that this is evident; the Red Bull operated with greater efficiency, with DRS augmenting that effect as the speed built up.

McLaren tech chief Rob Marshall stated that the Zandvoort upgrades were targeting "just general efficiency gains really, aerodynamic efficiency and a few things to try and help the way the car feels to the driver as well. A bit more downforce tends to fix everything".

This included a rear wing with an upper element that had become more squared off at the tips, and features a longer chord length overall. Below this, the mainplane has a deeper camber to introduce further downforce generation.

"It's a bit of a DRS improvement and just a general efficiency improvement," McLaren chief designer Rob Marshall on Dutch GP upgrades.

The beam wing has a second, short-chord element disassociated from the lower element that increases the downforce slightly more without too much being added to it in terms of drag. "If it delivers what we think, it will just become our new high downforce rear wing and it will obsolete the old one," Marshall added. "It's a bit of a DRS improvement and just a general efficiency improvement."

In the Zandvoort traces, the DRS drag from Turn 10 to 11 is quite pertinent here; Norris actually holds a 3kph difference to Verstappen at their peaks before braking for the chicane. Even though the sample shown is around 500m longer to a comparable stretch at the Hungaroring, the Hungary data is taken from a datum point further back after the cars have exited Turn 1 and got up to speed.

Below is the Zandvoort comparison with Hungary.

Regardless, we nonetheless see the reversal in fortunes here. It's a slightly different story on a longer straight, where Verstappen is able to match Norris for top speed by the start-finish line and the two remain into the first corner with speed parity. One other notable aspect is that Verstappen brakes later into the corners, but Norris recovers the speed with a slow-in, fast-out approach.

There are caveats here, namely that Perez transcended Norris' speed having run a lower-downforce specification compared to the two. When looking at the run into Turn 1, this assisted the Mexican driver who was able to reach 334kph before the braking zone, relative to Norris and Verstappen at 330kph, but was of detriment everywhere else on the circuit; by the exit of Turn 3, Perez's best qualifying lap. was 0.35s down on Norris' ultimate best. This is most evident in the same Turn 10-11 run with DRS; Perez only reached 295kph against Norris' 294kph, hindered by Perez's inferior traction out of the corner.

PLUS: The bite Norris showed at Zandvoort that paid him back handsomely

The focus here is on the outright balance; Verstappen had a better balance of top speed to corner speed in qualifying, while Perez had a slippery car but little grip in the corners. Norris had good top speed and confidence in the corners - and hence delivered the better laptime.

Ultimately, it'll count for little at Monza as both teams will use very different rear wings; the DRS effect will be less pronounced, ensuring that the overall construction of the wings themselves in their low-downforce state must be at their zenith in efficiency. But as there are plenty of remaining circuits that will make use of the higher-downforce wings that McLaren introduced at Zandvoort, it might have taken an advantage in a key battleground.

And, with its outside bet at a title still ongoing, McLaren has given itself a chance to keep fighting.

Watch: How Norris Dominated Zandvoort by Such a Margin -- F1 2024 Dutch GP Analysis