The Las Vegas Grand Prix delivered McLaren’s first disqualification of the 2025 Formula 1 season—a harsh setback at a crucial moment in the title fight. With Max Verstappen closing the gap to Lando Norris to just 24 points, the team now faces an unwelcome twist in the championship narrative. While the FIA confirmed the technical grounds for the penalty, the strange and unreliable theory about a heated skid block can be dismissed entirely. The real reasons behind the sanction must be found elsewhere.
Las Vegas GP, McLaren: we trust Andrea Stella
Andrea Stella publicly justified the disqualification by explaining that the team encountered an unexpected level of porpoising. The FIA accepted McLaren’s explanation, incorporating it into the official report. The team made it clear that there was no intention to break the rules, attributing the miscalculation to shortened practice sessions and difficult weather conditions that limited their ability to analyse the car’s behaviour in detail.
Teams test every aspect of the setup in the simulator both before and during the race weekend, constantly updating parameters with real-time data from the track. This is why we agree with the FIA’s assessment and see no reason to believe McLaren acted deliberately. Doubts always arise in situations like this, of course—so it is helpful to look at a comparison with the Ferrari case.
When Lewis Hamilton was disqualified at the Chinese Grand Prix, the floor plank measured 8.5 mm, meaning the wear exceeded the limit by half a millimetre. In Lando Norris’ case, the recorded wear was around 8.8 mm—technically illegal by just two-tenths of a millimetre. The exact measurement of the second test remains unknown, but we do know that after an initial reading, officials performed a second inspection with FIA judges and McLaren staff present.
According to the FIA, this second measurement showed an even thinner value than the first recorded by the technical delegate. Several skid blocks positioned on different parts of the floor are checked to assess plank wear, and on the MCL39 it was the rear skid blocks that fell outside the regulations.
F1, McLaren: excessive wear on the rear skid block
In the case of the MCL39, the rear section was the one found to be non-compliant. This fits with the explanation that unexpected porpoising caused additional wear at the back of the car. Under aerodynamic bouncing, it is the rear edge of the floor that repeatedly hits the track surface. At such a decisive point in the championship, taking a risk knowingly would make little strategic sense.
Compared to last season, both Red Bull and McLaren made significant progress at this circuit. Neither team needed to run extremely low ride heights to generate sufficient downforce. McLaren also suggested there may have been floor damage contributing to the excessive wear, but the FIA did not consider this argument strong enough to mitigate the penalty.
McLaren, no connection to the unfounded heated floor theory
Various rumours have emerged regarding McLaren’s floor design, including a supposed technique involving heating the titanium skid blocks to protect the plank. We discussed this theory extensively in recent days and demonstrated why such a solution is physically unworkable.
To summarise: heating a 3 mm aluminium block to 600°C would theoretically produce a thermal expansion of just 16 microns (0.016 mm)—an amount too small to yield any meaningful advantage. Moreover, 600°C is an extremely high temperature and very difficult to generate in one precise area of the car.
Heating the block internally would also cause multidirectional expansion, placing stress on the wood or resin plank. This could damage it, cause delamination, or even create a fire risk. It is therefore unrealistic to consider this a viable approach.
This does not mean that Formula 1 teams avoid pushing boundaries when it comes to floor protection—quite the opposite. In recent weeks, we analysed how McLaren had already managed to shift the point of maximum plank wear forward toward the front of the car in several races. This allows the team to run the car lower relative to the reference plane and generate more downforce.
However, the irregularity seen in Las Vegas must be studied carefully, and it is clear that it has nothing to do with the unfounded heated floor theory circulating online. The explanation lies instead in porpoising, track conditions, and limited preparation time—not in any extreme or illegal heating mechanism.
The result? A painful, costly, but entirely innocent mistake that has turned a 24-point championship lead into a nerve-shredding dogfight over the final two rounds.
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