At the start of this season, McLaren seems unreachable, while its rivals are forced to chase. The closest competitor, at least in the F1 drivers’ standings, is Red Bull, with Max Verstappen trailing the Piastri-Norris duo. The team is preparing new updates to catch up with the papaya-colored competitors.
The Austrian team presented some updates to the RB21 in Saudi Arabia, but the changes affected the unseen parts of the car.
It was a refinement of the radiators and internal ducts in preparation for the weekend. The extent of the work required several hours, which is why the team fell behind their rivals in conducting pit stop tests.
The only visible parts of the updates in Jeddah were the engine cover vent and modifications to the beam wing. The FIA vehicle update proposals concern only aerodynamic modifications. In this sense, the modifications to the engine cover were specifically intended to improve thermal exchange.
The weekend changes allowed Max Verstappen to secure an unexpected pole position. However, the Dutchman was unable to convert it into a win on Sunday, thanks to the five-second penalty for the controversial Turn 1 incident with Oscar Piastri.
It is Oscar Piastri, the Australian, who now leads the F1 World Championship with 99 points, but Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is still close, trailing by just 12 points. While the team aims to regain control of the drivers’ standings and move forward in the constructors’ standings, further improvements are expected in the near future.
In Jeddah, an updated floor was ready to be installed on the car, but the engineers preferred to introduce one change at a time to evaluate its effectiveness. The floor could be used during the Miami GP, although the Sprint weekend only includes a single free practice session.
Otherwise, the update will be delayed until Imola, along with another radical change involving the sidepod profile, as well as the vertical flow deviators under the floor and a different rear bodywork profile in front of the rear suspension.
The wings, more in terms of construction than actual profile shape changes, will also differ at Imola from those used so far. These could be considered an intermediate version, but nearly final, ahead of those that will debut in Spain two weeks later. In short, updates are on the way at Milton Keynes—will they be enough to catch McLaren?
Leave a Reply