Why Is McLaren Avoiding Using Its Updated Floor?

McLaren is preparing an updated floor to strengthen its fight for the F1 championship, but the team is taking a cautious approach before introducing it.

The Woking-based team has admitted that it is holding back from bringing a new floor to its Formula 1 car due to the risk of encountering setbacks similar to those faced by its rivals. McLaren is engaged in a tight battle with Red Bull for this year’s F1 championship, fully aware that they have a chance to win both the constructors’ and drivers’ titles.

In this period where the performance gap between cars is minimal, McLaren is aware that any gains from updates could be decisive. However, the team has confessed that they are being cautious about implementing a floor update they’ve been working on, fearing it could trigger unwanted results similar to those seen by other teams. Throughout the 2024 season, some teams have encountered issues when their new floor designs, aimed at increasing downforce, led to undesirable side effects.

Aston Martin faced a setback following a major update in Imola, Ferrari encountered high-speed bouncing after Spain, and Mercedes had some questions regarding their developments in Spa. Recently, Red Bull has also been questioning whether the balance issues they faced were a result of the new floor design introduced at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella mentioned that one of the reasons they haven’t encountered any significant hurdles midway through the season is due to only bringing one major update so far, thereby minimizing the risk of issues.

While McLaren continues to work on an updated floor at the factory, Stella added that the team will wait until they are certain it works before introducing the new part. He stated, “We haven’t made a significant update since Miami,” and explained why McLaren has avoided the fate of other teams regarding updates: “The next update, which wasn’t as big as Miami’s, was in Zandvoort, and it didn’t involve the whole floor, just a detail. It covered some other areas of the car.”

“But there’s a reason we haven’t brought certain updates. If we had pushed the button, we could see some doubts arising when these parts are tested at full scale on the actual car.”

“That’s why we’re not rushing to implement developments until we’re convinced they are mature enough to be applied on the track.”

Although McLaren dominated the last Dutch Grand Prix weekend, Stella believes this performance was the exception rather than the norm, with minimal differences between cars. However, he thinks that McLaren’s performance at Monza last weekend, where they secured the front row in qualifying and achieved a double podium in the race, shows that they can now be fast everywhere.

Stella continued, “I think the grid order is more about drivers being able to extract the available grip rather than having a dominant car. If we look at the actual lap times instead of just the 1st and 2nd positions, we see that any of the top four teams’ drivers could have claimed pole position.”