The main goal was to reduce weight
McLaren before the summer break gave clear signs of competitiveness. The grid penalty in Belgium prevented Lando Norris from fighting for the win by taking advantage of the pole position obtained in Qualifying, but in Hungary nothing stopped the reigning world champion from winning with some authority.
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The Woking team has new updates ready for Zandvoort and Baku that will complete the development of the MCL40, a development that had a structural limit due to a decision made during the design phase.
McLaren, in fact, opted for a short wheelbase as a ‘shortcut’ to try to limit the weight problems that affected several teams. “Initially we designed a shorter car because it is lighter and we knew that the weight regulations would represent a really huge challenge – explained the team’s technical director Neil Houldey as reported by the outlet the-race.com – this gave us a good initial advantage and allowed us to focus performance in other areas. Next year I think we will opt for a slightly longer car to have a larger support surface on the floor thus fully exploiting its potential”.
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Besides the floor ‘limited’ by the wheelbase, McLaren has to work on drag resistance by improving the efficiency of the MCL40: “It seems that other teams are sometimes a bit more efficient than us both in cornering mode and in straight-line mode – added Houldey – so we are evaluating how to make the car more aerodynamically efficient“.
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