After celebrating the Constructors’ Championship in Abu Dhabi, McLaren is positioning itself as the team to beat in the coming year. The Woking squad can count on an additional asset in Rob Marshall. The new technical director of the mechanical design department joined the team on January 1, 2024, with the 2025 car being the first to fully bear his influence. The British engineer will apply some concepts from Max Verstappen’s Red Bull while focusing on ideas that will remain relevant in 2026. The new McLaren is shaping up to be “far from the same as last year.”
Red Bull-Inspired Solutions
“He is doing all the architectural work for 2025 and 2026,” confirmed Team Principal Andrea Stella, underscoring Marshall’s pivotal role in developing McLaren’s next two cars. However, his influence will not be seen in aerodynamic solutions but in the components beneath the surface. His ability to optimize internal elements will grant greater flexibility to the aerodynamics and vehicle dynamics teams, allowing them to implement their ideas.
Examples include the suspension system layout, chassis, and optimization of internal components within the engine cover to enhance aerodynamics. With ground-effect Formula 1 cars, slimming down the sidepods and exposing more of the upper surface of the floor increases the energy and total pressure of the airflow, benefiting the lower aerodynamics as well. In recent years, Red Bull has been a benchmark in packaging internal components, and it is likely that Marshall will bring some of these ideas to McLaren.
The 2025 McLaren might draw inspiration from Red Bull’s cooling system, which featured an extreme configuration in 2024—arguably too extreme. Rob Marshall left Red Bull in late May 2023, by which time the groundwork for the RB20 was already laid. As suggested by the larger engine covers used late last season, Red Bull is expected to adopt less extreme bodywork solutions in 2025. Nonetheless, fundamental concepts such as splitting the cooling system and separating air intakes remain viable, potentially applicable by McLaren and other teams.
A Very Different McLaren
In an interview with *Racecar Engineering*, Rob Marshall shared more details about the upcoming McLaren, describing the successor to the MCL38 as significantly different from its predecessor: “We’ve undertaken some major projects this year. The car will be far from the same as last year, but we’ve ensured that the key areas we’re addressing will carry over to the 2026 car. These won’t be one-off exercises; instead, it’s work we believe won’t be invalidated by the new regulations.”
When evaluating potential packaging solutions, Rob Marshall opted to focus on those that would be scalable and adaptable to the next car: “Perhaps there were a couple of concepts we could have explored that won’t be relevant anymore. We avoided those for that reason, but we believe the ones we want to develop most are versatile enough to apply to the new regulations.”
Concepts Applicable to 2026
Marshall had already begun working on the 2026 regulations during his tenure at Red Bull, as Adrian Newey revealed in 2023: “From a chassis perspective, we’re looking at various ways to integrate everything. Rob Marshall is working on this and doing a great job.”
Given the significant differences between the current and upcoming regulations, McLaren’s 2025 chassis will differ considerably from its 2026 counterpart. However, some projects will be applicable to both. For instance, the downsizing of the 2026 cars encourages the development of a very short gearbox, which would require adapting the rear suspension surrounding the transmission—a principle also relevant for current cars.
There is also curiosity about how Rob Marshall will leverage the positioning of the steering box behind the front suspension wishbone, a solution developed by McLaren before his arrival, which could become a trendsetter.
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