Why McLaren's 2023 may be a building year, despite new F1 car's Red Bull hints

There was always going to be convergence, wasn’t there? When Formula 1’s 2022 aerodynamic overhaul entered the lexicon, each of the 10 teams had created 10 different interpretations of the newly defined rules. Only one of those could be the best way in, and it was evident that Red Bull’s RB18 fit the bill.

And as the old saying goes: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. That’s not to say that every team is in the game to shamelessly copy the Milton Keynes squad, but rather that last year’s benchmark is naturally going to offer some degree of inspiration. In two of Monday’s unveilings, there were clear traits that had been inspired by the RB18, but with their own distinct flavour.

Williams’ unveiling of its FW45 ahead of a shakedown at Silverstone showed an evolution of the sidepod concept it ran last season, but with a few cues from the championship-winning team as it applied a much more dramatic undercut along with a tunnel-shaped ‘shelf’ above the top of the sidepod. Lightning struck twice, as McLaren then unveiled renders of its MCL60 featuring similar hallmarks.

There appears to be some carryover from last year’s MCL36, although this could be the usual system of filling out a launch car with old parts to hide some of the new innovations. But let’s pick through what we have, since there’s a few new bits and pieces worthy of our time.

McLaren’s new sidepods in particular have been tightened up over the winter. One of the areas of convergence over the 2022 season appeared to be in that area, where the likes of Aston Martin, Alpine and McLaren itself shifted to a downwashing geometry rather than opting for a more traditional inwash. In forming that, the designers have decided to open up the rear of the engine cover’s upper part, creating that ‘shelf’ around the tailpipe. In between, this leaves space for a boat tail, and that inward blend is visible around the suspension components at the back.

There seems to be more of an effort to merge the inwash and the downwash now to achieve the best of both worlds. Hence the bigger sidepod undercut to reduce the length of travel for the airflow moving around the car, complete with the underbite that the team introduced last season.

Red Bull-inspired sidepod undercut is in evidence on launch photos of the new McLaren

Photo by: McLaren

Cooling packages were defined in advance last season and, although there’s a little leeway to play with sidepod geometries, the likes of McLaren were still hemmed in by their own boundaries set at the start of the year. Now, armed with the knowledge of how the other teams did business, McLaren has been able to slim down its sidepods further.

The front end looks similar to last season, complete with squared-off nose, but appears more modular in design as the tip appears to be formed of bits of carbon plating. Whether this is to obscure something else or done for customisability remains to be seen, but it’s a curious detail nonetheless. Given the need for cost cap savings in F1’s new generation, teams have experimented with modularity to allow for bodywork changes to keep them from splurging on all-new pieces.

A first round of upgrades is scheduled for around the fourth race, at Baku, which fits into the four-week gap between grands prix in April. McLaren will be hoping for a hassle-free pre-season this time around, having spent weeks chasing its tail last year as braking issues came to light in the Bahrain test. Finding a fix to those issues wasted resources that the team could have used in finding performance, and left the MCL36 a little bit behind its rivals in the pecking order to begin with.

"We are happy, not entirely happy for what is the launch car, but optimistic that should take a good step soon" Andrea Stella

But there were also aerodynamic shortfalls, and the team had spent time attempting to address the arrears that resulted in McLaren dropping to fifth in the constructors’ standings behind Alpine. More will come with those developments, but optimism about 2023 appeared muted at best.

PLUS: How Alpine won the war to be F1's best of the rest in 2022

“In reality, we have to say that assessing our performance last year and looking at comparing those, we identified multiple areas of opportunities,” explained newly promoted team principal Andrea Stella. “The good news is that pretty much all of them have been addressed.

“I wouldn't want to be too specific, but certainly they have to do predominantly with aerodynamics. Aerodynamics is the name of the game in F1, so no mystery, but there's some more areas for instance, in terms of interaction with the tyres there's some work that we needed to do and this was done over the winter.

“There's some other areas of the car that like I said, will be interesting by developments in the early stage of the season. So we are happy, not entirely happy for what is the launch car, but optimistic that should take a good step soon.”

New McLaren is the first overseen by Stella (right) in his new role as team principal following Seidl's departure for Sauber

Photo by: McLaren

Thus, there’s the inescapable feeling of a holding season when it comes to discussing McLaren’s chances. The MCL60 is an evolution of last year’s car and, while it should offer more room for development, the team already has half an eye on 2024.

The team’s new windtunnel is expected to come online later this year and will be pressed into service for the development of next year’s car, and so the team is understandably more enthused by the prospect of having new toys to play with.

Speaking at the launch, Stella and McLaren CEO Zak Brown explained that they were happy with the technical team’s efforts, and instead regretted that they had not been able to provide the design and development teams with enough resources.

“We’re very happy with James [Key, technical director] and Piers [Thynne, operations director],” explained Brown. “The way Andrea has built the leadership team, there's a very high level of engagement, a lot of after hours work. I think we have identified the shortcomings of last year's car and worked hard to tackle it on this year's car. As Andrea said, I think we got most of it right, but we know there's still a couple areas that we're not where we want to be. But yeah, all the confidence in the world in James.”

Stella also explained that, with the infrastructure McLaren has been used to following a more parsimonious period in the late 2010s as investment dried up, the team has been good value given the tools it has available. With more up to date kit, Stella contends, McLaren has the ingredients to be much more competitive.

“There's more associated with the lack of the windtunnel than we may think,” he added. “For instance, there's quite a significant fee to pay the windtunnel when we rent it. By having our own, we save quite a significant amount of resources that we want to reinvest in expanding the team.

“So if I consider the lack of windtunnel and ultimately the size of the workforce, I think McLaren has been doing a competitive job in the past. Allow me to use these two factors to say that we are very happy with what's happening on the technical side. And now it's more up to us to provide the technical side with the right equipment and with the right team power to actually be able to compete at the front.”

McLaren is pinning its hopes on the new windtunnel to make the MCL60's successor a frontrunner

Photo by: McLaren

Despite the naked carbon aesthetic still proving prevalent around the MCL60’s contours, McLaren has been able to strip weight out to allow for a touch more orange wrap on the car. The refreshed driver pairing of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri is also an exciting prospect, with Norris an excellent benchmark for the rookie Australian to look up to.

PLUS: How can McLaren keep hold of Norris?

But their fortunes, as ever, will be inextricably tied to how the MCL60 performs; early chatter suggests that the team will be happy to reprise its place in fifth overall given the resources at its disposal. The real litmus test for the fruits of the team’s investment won’t be until 2024 and 2025, and so 2023 may well be another building year for the Woking squad.

But if we get to Bahrain and the car’s more impressive than it initially let on, then it has the drivers and the technical team on hand for a prosperous year.

Will the new car give McLaren cause to celebrate as the team marks its 60th anniversary?

Photo by: McLaren