Andrea Stella, team principal of Woking, expects the field to tighten in Barcelona due to the characteristics of the circuit rather than the introduction of new front wings, which must now pass stricter static tests. The Italian admitted that the new solution had already been used by Norris in FP1 at Imola, clearing up any doubts.
McLaren is not worried about the new technical checks on front wings being introduced by the FIA starting in Barcelona. The reason is simple: like Mercedes, the Woking-based team used the first free practice session of the Made in Italy and Emilia-Romagna GP to test a solution that complies with the regulation changes.
Lando Norris used the stiffer front wing in FP1 at Imola, gathering all the data needed to prepare for the official debut of the solution, which will take place today at Montmeló.
“We head into the Barcelona weekend aware that the competition will be much tighter,” said Andrea Stella, McLaren team principal, before this weekend’s sessions. “As I briefly mentioned in Monaco, this is a circuit whose characteristics could suit our competitors well, which might make the group particularly competitive. With this in mind, we expect a race more in line with what we saw at Imola and Suzuka.”
Andrea Stella somewhat anticipates criticism by offering his explanation:
“This weekend will also see the introduction of a new front wing under the FIA’s TD. It might seem that this provision could tighten the field, but that would be an incorrect assumption. In fact, we had already used the new front wing with Lando at Imola and found its impact on performance negligible, in line with our simulations.”
It’s also worth explaining why McLaren did not list the front wing among the updates declared to the FIA at Imola: the answer is simple—Woking’s engineers only added carbon fiber reinforcements, which changed the structure of the wing but not its design, as the shape remained unchanged.
There will be much attention on whether the reduction in front wing flex will lead to any shifts in the pecking order. So far, the discussion has largely played out in the media, with Fred Vasseur claiming that the TD “…can change the game for everyone, because we don’t know the impact of the new regulation on each individual team.” Max Verstappen and Christian Horner from Red Bull, on the other hand, seemed less convinced that Barcelona will alter the 2025 championship hierarchy.
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