McLaren drops H-wing concept for F1 Spanish GP

McLaren is parking its H-wing concept for this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid, with its version of the rotating Formula 1 rear wing set to return in Baku.

The Woking-based team had been working on its own interpretation of the rear wing, which rotates 180 degrees between Corner Mode and Straight Mode, after seeing Ferrari pioneer its concept during winter testing. Following a delayed rollout, the team debuted the new wing in practice at the Hungarian Grand Prix before testing it again in Zandvoort. It finally ran in competition at last weekend's Italian GP.

By all accounts the system, which McLaren has internally dubbed H-Wing, worked as intended, with the mechanism helping to reduce drag on the straights. But Autosport understands McLaren will keep the H-wing system on its low-drag wing for now, rather than retroactively adding the system to its higher downforce packages.

At the high-downforce Madring circuit, which makes its debut this weekend, McLaren is set to run the new rear wing introduced in Zandvoort, featuring striking sculpted endplates.

As teams have to carefully decide to allocate their production resources, McLaren wanted to focus on fast-tracking its H-wing concept for Monza, where the drag reduction yields a much bigger lap time benefit than on twistier circuits. It therefore decided against producing a version of the Zandvoort wing with the H-wing concept.

McLaren will run its Zandvoort wing in Madrid, featuring sculpted endplates.

Photo by: Eric Le Galliot

The Monza H-wing is now set to return at the high-speed Baku street circuit at the end of September, which also places an emphasis on top speed and efficiency. Meanwhile, the team plans to produce another iteration of its higher downforce wing later on, built from the ground up to incorporate the rotating rear wing actuator.

McLaren heads into the Madrid weekend as one of the favourites to contend for victory on the challenging 5.4km circuit, off the back of two wins for Lando Norris at the Hungaroring and Zandvoort circuits.

The H-wing monikers is a nod to the letter H in the Etihad logo that adorns the rear of the MCL40's rear wing. The letter H runs along the centreline where the H-Wing's straight mode actuator is positioned. It follows a tradition set by the team's famed F-duct in 2010, which was named after the F in Vodafone along the nose where the duct was installed.

Autosport understands the Racing Bulls team, which introduced a rotating rear wing of its own in Monza as well, will also park it for Madrid as it doesn't suit the characteristics of the Madring track. It is also planning to run the wing again later on this season.