The details behind McLaren's long-awaited Baku update

“What we have now is what we should have started the year with,” Lando Norris mused in the Thursday press conference ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, when asked about the subject of McLaren’s much-vaunted updates arriving in Baku.

As early as the launch of the MCL60, new McLaren team principal Andrea Stella did not sugar coat the suggestion that the new car would struggle in the early season; updates were planned for Baku owing to a change in late change in design direction in September last year, and the team was waiting for the ship to follow the steering.

The race in Baku rolled around, and McLaren stuck to its schedule by augmenting its cars with a new floor, along with a series of circuit-specific changes to the rear wing. The most visible of those changes sit on the edge of the floor, where the tools used have been reprofiled. Previously, the edge of the floor featured a slot down almost the entire breadth, which hosted a flick-up leading into an L-shaped piece attached to the main body with a series of separators. On this old floor, much of the effort was spent on using the exposed edges to develop some degree of vorticity and protect the underbody flow.

But McLaren felt very early on that this wasn’t going to be the right direction to develop in. Stella stated that the old floor “seemed like it was running out of steam in development” and that a different design that it had on the backburner offered greater potential going forward. It was going to take a little extra time to get that new floor race ready, and so McLaren’s engineers elected to lock in the ‘unwanted’ design for the opening trio of races and focus on perfecting the new version for the end of April.

The new design keeps the flick-up, with three fins sitting inside, but there’s no longer the floor-length slot along the edge. This has been replaced by a U-shaped cutout ahead of the floor support, with a small winglet protruding from it. There are also changes to the front fence on the floor, presumably to match those changes further back to ensure the entire floor structure works harmoniously.

But the floor edge isn’t the sole area of McLaren’s focus. Addressing the changes, Stella explained further work had focused on the underside to match those fence and edge changes.

“The main upgrade part is the side of the floor, but actually on this generation of car, a lot of what contributes to the performance is what you don't see - it's under the car,” Stella says. “If you look underneath, you'll see channels which play quite a significant role. You'll see the fences in this area, they play quite a significant role as well. And the channels and the fences, they play together. So it's not like ‘I saw some different channels on another car, I can copy it’ - it’s very three-dimensional flow.

"This is also why you don't only have to get the basic concepts right, which is something we haven't done for the start of the season, but it also starts to become a game of millimetres here and there. For instance, these geometries [on the floor edge], they just accommodate vorticity and millimetres here make the difference.

“The name of the game now is in terms of getting the flow right, and understanding what is the high-level concepts that you need to focus the development on. That is a real game of millimetres, with many iterations of many areas of the car.”

That vorticity is something that the teams have used for a number of years to build an airflow pattern that can help to seal off the underbody, almost like a skirt made of air. This ensures that, with a powerful cycle of air running along the flanks, any low-energy air hoping to be sucked underneath the car can be warded off, keeping the suction produced by the underbody relatively powerful.

McLaren has more upgrades planned for the rest of the season as it aims to turn around the fortunes of its MCL60; at least two more large-scale updates will be plotted for the year, with any smaller-ticket items falling between them. Circuit-specific items will fall into that, much like the Baku-spec rear wing that was employed to improve overall straightline speed along the long acceleration zone between Turn 16 and Turn 1.

"The name of the game now is in terms of getting the flow right, and understanding what is the high-level concepts that you need to focus the development on" Andrea Stella

This featured the usual trimmed out upper wing elements to limit chord length and angle of attack to cut drag, allied to a new beam wing to improve the overall efficiency of the car in a straight line. Versus the top four cars – the Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, and Aston Martin – the McLaren was around 10km/h short and this lack of straightline pace hurt Norris in qualifying.

The Briton felt that he could have achieved fourth on the grid and, if the times were taken on the exit of Turn 16, this would have been the case. Instead, the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso were stronger in the top speed stakes, and all three relegated Norris by the timing line.

Stella conceded that there was work to do in improving the MCL60’s top speed, but was equally keen to point out that sacrificing too much downforce would have been even more costly around the rest of the circuit. GPS shows that in the corners, Norris was the strongest driver – particularly as he was also the most reliant on using the engine braking to slow the car down as he would often use second gear when the others were using third. However, this may have come at the expense of ultimate top speed.

The McLaren was around 10km/h short of its competitors and this lack of straightline pace hurt Norris in qualifying

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

"We made some progress for this track with the new beam wing, which helps with overall efficiency and less drag - also by trimming the upper part of the rear wing,” Stella explained post-race. “I think at the moment the issue is still that you can reduce the drag and be faster in the in the straights, but you wouldn't be quick enough in the corners because that's the overall efficiency that we are missing at the moment. And this is through pretty much all levels of drag, all levels of rear wing, but in tracks like this you feel it even more. So definitely work to do in improving the top speed of the car.

"If you see Alpine, they went with a very small rear wing. But it's not like it solves the problems with pace, because you may be faster in the straight, and slow in the corner. When a car is efficient, like Red Bull, they can use a small rear wing and still have good grip in the corners. So that's the result of overall aerodynamic development. And we know that we have to catch up."

Miami will pose a bit more of a rounded test for McLaren, as it features a greater range of corners and characteristics. Apart from the back straight, the lack of top-end pace inherent in the MCL60 should be altogether less problematic, and should play into the hands of a car that seems to have much more downforce compared to where it began in Bahrain.

How McLaren develops further will be of great interest, particularly as it looks set to battle once again with Alpine over a constructors’ championship placing. The ball is now in motion after a long wait, and the early signs point to McLaren’s upgrades being worth the wait.

Miami will pose a bit more of a rounded test for McLaren, as it features a greater range of corners and characteristics

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images