McLaren denies being affected
“We’ll all be closer, the temperatures will be lower, and the asphalt is more uneven.” In the press conference on the eve of the Emilia Romagna GP, Oscar Piastri had noted that he wasn’t expecting a repeat of the Miami weekend, where both McLarens dominated the race. The Australian’s prediction turned out to be accurate, as McLaren did not display enough superiority to allow Piastri to respond to the perfect move with which Verstappen took the lead at the Tamburello chicane.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, after the GP, said he was not so much surprised by Verstappen’s performance as by McLaren’s less impressive showing. According to The Race, on Monday, May 12, the teams received two technical directives from the Federation. The first addressed potential grey areas teams may have exploited in the measurement of the flat floor. Essentially, the FIA’s aim was to prevent teams from passing scrutineering but then lowering their ride height further during the race. The directive clarified what materials can be used and how the flat floor should be mounted.
The second technical directive did not involve a change in how the regulations are interpreted by the FIA, but was simply a formal reply from the Federation to a question raised by Red Bull. The topic concerned the use of devices that could aid in tire cooling — a subject already touched upon on the eve of the Imola weekend in relation to Red Bull’s exclusion-based investigation (asking whether insulating material could be used inside the brake ducts) in an attempt to uncover what might have been the “very clever” solution (as Verstappen put it) found by McLaren. This kind of dynamic — ongoing dialogue between teams and the FIA — is typical in F1 and is aimed precisely at stripping rivals of advantages gained from exploiting grey areas in the rules. Essentially, by asking the FIA what is permitted and what is not in terms of cooling, Red Bull obtained a response that now must be followed by all teams, and in doing so, certain grey areas of the regulations may have been clarified.
McLaren denied being affected by these technical directives, and Andrea Stella’s words on the eve of Imola confirm this. The papaya-colored cars still secured second and third place at Imola — along with pole position — and other factors may have been responsible for the Woking team’s second defeat in seven races this season. Red Bull completed its first update cycle, and the limited number of slow corners on the Imola track may have prevented the versatile McLaren from making the difference in that key area against Red Bull.
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