No liquid cooling on McLaren MCL39 brakes, confirms FIA after Miami inspection. FIA clarifies that McLaren does not use liquid cooling for rear brakes.

The document is clear
On paper, the final year of a technical cycle should be marked by performance convergence and characterized by technical balance, and this is indeed the case if we consider the extremely small gaps between cars in qualifying, especially when spots in Q2 and Q3 are at stake.

However, McLaren has found a way to make a significant difference, especially in race pace, thanks to an outstanding management of tire temperature, particularly on the rear axle. While rivals are ‘cooking’ their tires and losing grip and performance, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri can push without too many concerns, creating huge gaps as happened, for example, in Miami.

Red Bull is clearly in a ‘desperate’ search for the solution McLaren has found and has repeatedly questioned the Federation to try and find the right ‘leverage’ to understand what special discovery has been made in Woking. Not by chance, Zak Brown, McLaren’s boss, declared that there should be a price to pay if the FIA inspection requested by rivals doesn’t actually lead to anything concrete. Also not coincidentally, it emerged yesterday that the Milton Keynes team asked the Federation for clarification on the use of insulating material in the wheel assembly.

Today the FIA released an important document regarding the technical checks carried out after the Miami GP. Among the randomly selected cars was Oscar Piastri’s McLaren, and the wheel assemblies were examined—thus also including brake drums, ducts, etc. The Federation stated that everything was found to be in compliance with the technical regulations, particularly with Articles 3.13 and 1.15. Article 3.13 concerns all the carbon components of the wheel assembly, therefore also the winglet, drums, and cooling ducts. Article 1.15 refers to liquid cooling, which is prohibited by the regulations. Therefore, the FIA specifically checked that there were no solutions that could be interpreted as ‘liquid cooling’ of the brakes—an idea that had been circulating online in recent days, including speculation that McLaren might be using a material capable of changing state depending on temperature, going from solid to liquid.