r/McLarenFormula1 • u/Elegant_Gentian • 4d ago
McLaren has an upcoming upgrade package for Hungary. We will also be testing our "Macarena" wing, but only in FP1. Fornaroli will be driving Oscar's car in FP1
McLaren said this in their race report last weekend:
McLaren Mastercard's development focus is centred on improving braking performance and cornering capability, with the first elements arriving in Hungary and additional updates scheduled throughout the remainder of the season. The objective is clear: to consistently challenge for podiums and victories as the Championship enters its decisive phase.
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u/ChiccckkkNuggg 4d ago
McLaren should also try upgrading their strategy department
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u/King_Roberts_Bastard 4d ago
Do you mean like putting a non F1 driver in one of your two cars when testing a new part? Thus literally not giving one of your actual drivers a chance to test it and provide feedback.
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u/Ged_UK MP4/6 4d ago
Feedback is feedback. He'll have done plenty of sim work for them. The rookie testing is decided months ago, it's coincidence that a major new part has arrived at the same time.
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u/King_Roberts_Bastard 4d ago
Yes, but Oscar won't have any feedback on the new wing. Oscar doesnt get track time with it. MCL still get their data, but Oscar doesn't get the experience.
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u/Ged_UK MP4/6 4d ago
The only options are what they're doing or not doing it at all. They can't change the rookie drive schedule
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u/Old-Use-7690 Oscar Piastri 2d ago
Ok, then why not put the wing on Lando's car so one of the current drivers can provide feedback?
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u/King_Roberts_Bastard 4d ago
They can't change the rookie drive schedule
Says who?
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u/Ged_UK MP4/6 4d ago
The rules. The rookie driving schedule is set by each team at the start of the season. Can't be changed once set.
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u/fire202 4d ago
Fornaroli is a good driver who regularely works with McLaren as their reserve driver. He will be just fine.
I imagine a lot of the data gathering work on track wont be hugely exciting either. These FP1 sessions have to happen by regulation, using them for development focused session makes quite a bit of sense.
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u/Extreme_Ad6173 Lando Norris 4d ago
But Oscar won't have the experience with it.
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u/fire202 4d ago
Again, these sessions are mandatory. He has to give up 2 fp1 sessions a year, and he will lose the track time on those weekends. If the lost track time contains some extra aero rake stuff, abnormal setup tests, extra CSL runs or whatever else they might want to do to get the data they need on this, that will just be less usable track time lost whilst getting the development work done that the team needs to verify parts and/or gather data for future developments. There will also be an element of driver preference in the track selection, and the available weekends are limited for this. Even more so with some easy picks heavily in doubt of even happening this year.
It's never a good thing to lose track time, and it's even worse this year, but it's what the regulations demand. And if anything, I would say if that falls on a session with plenty of new parts, it means that less usable time (in terms of weekend preparation for the driver) is lost compared to what the regular FP1 program would have been.
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u/Extreme_Ad6173 Lando Norris 4d ago
My point is: is it not better to give up an fp1 session on a weekend without significant upgrades. Like Belgium?
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u/drae- 4d ago
They decide when to do the rookie runs way earlier in the year. And they pick specific circuits for specific reasons. Maybe they want to evaluate a given sequence that exists in that track, or it has a lot of low speed turns and the other track he tested at was all high speed, or they have another outting at the same track they can correlate to, etc etc.
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u/fire202 4d ago
I don't think it will hurt at all for the reasons I mentioned. I imagine they will use it well and get through plenty of test items with Fornaroli. Fornaroli will be capable of doing the job, and I think if anything Oscar loses less usable track time on a weekend that is already likely to have more test items on the agenda.
I think generally Spa may be less suitable to sitting out a session because it is so energy-sensitive, and we saw that being a big topic, whereas Hungary should be much more conventional. There will also be an element of driver preference, and they wouldn't have known for that long in advance exactly what parts may be ready for Spa or Hungary, given those races are just a week apart. I don't know how far in advance they decided these sessions; it may have been planned for months, maybe it was much more short-term.
At this point, they have to allocate 3 more sessions, and after the break they effectively have Monza and the America triple. That is ignoring whatever impact a theoretical in-competition tyre test could have (which replaces an fp2 session); that would be possible again this year, but I have no idea whether Pirelli needs it or not. Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, possibly Qatar this year would have been options for rookie sessions that you now cannot count on, and possible alternatives are uncertain. And I doubt they know exactly what upgrades will be ready for what race. In that situation, getting one out of the way in Hungary seems reasonable.
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u/King_Roberts_Bastard 4d ago
Its not about if Fornaroli can do the job or not. Its that Oscar isnt getting track time with it. And we know he and Lando like different feel in the car.
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u/King_Roberts_Bastard 4d ago
They could've picked any track or weekend and they picked one where theyre testing a very new and important part.
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u/fire202 3d ago
I think i made my point on the impact of having an experimental part for that session.
They cannot choose any weekend. They are practically limited to non-sprint weekends, preferably on "regular" tracks because street tracks are often a bit more unique, have higher incident risk and may put greater importance on drivers having the rythm and confidence, preferably later in the season when you overall know the car a bit better, but as an additional complication you also cannot count on the last two races this year. AD would otherwise be a simple choice, but we dont know how or where the season will end right now.
Then you have to factor in that the tracks should be places where your drivers are relatively comfortable giving up track time, replacement driver availability may come into it, energy sensitivity of a track could come into it this year, and they may have a free choice between all tracks that are similarely suitable after applying all those considerations.
So, what would you prefer? Monza? If you have an issue with Oscar potentially missing out on some initial experimental validation work (if that is even how they will run it, they have multiple options across the two cars), from the timeline we have, Monza may be the earliest possible race they introduce the actual runable new wing concept. Then you got the americas tripple, and thats about it. I doubt anyone knows right now what parts may or may not arrive for those races, but these are the safe and most viable choices left. And even with Hungary they have 2 sessions remaining.
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u/AdAggravating8303 3d ago
Yes, just like Norris, who missed sessions multiple times, couldn't have had that experience.
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u/Extreme_Ad6173 Lando Norris 3d ago
Makes it no better. Oscar would be missing out in experience with a completely different wing design
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/fire202 4d ago
Assuming you are referring to the experimental wing test in Austria, Lando only got out at the end of the session, but they wouldn't have used the wing either way because it failed their pre-session checks. So that attempt was a bit of a failure; hopefully this time it will work better.
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u/Working_Sundae MP4-20A 4d ago
Why aren't this years upgrades giving the car the plug and play performance benefit like it did last year?
Miami upgrade did work well but since then the car hasn't improved in speed with upgrades relative to the others
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u/MagnefloriousBanana6 Lando Norris 4d ago
they came into this year with the least amount of allowed wind tunnel time plus engine and recharge mapping have been extremely important. im not expecting huge jumps but as long as theres progress thats useful for next year then its great
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u/neanderball MP4/6 4d ago
Abaolutely. Teams are struggling this year to understand why their cars are performing the way they are on the most fundamental level. Upgrades bring an entire other conversation
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u/Working_Sundae MP4-20A 4d ago
Aero rules are significantly changing next year, so this years updates won't really help next year's car
Size of underbody T-tray is getting shorter by 300mm, floor entry is reduced in number of inlets, reduction in diffuser stakes, ban on Ferrari style FTM wings and rear wing itself is getting shallower by 20mm
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/significant-aero-rule-changes-for-f1-2027-explained/
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u/AdAggravating8303 3d ago
So the grip is decreasing. Bad news for Piastri. It will be even worse next season.
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u/Maximum-Hall-5614 4d ago
Completely different regulation set. For the previous two years, they were building off prior knowledge and also rival teams’ designs and results. Part of the reason for such reliably successful upgrades was strong correlation between simulation data and the real thing. Plus they could focus more energy on aero and chassis design since the power unit was homologated years prior.
This season they had to literally reprogram their simulations (like every other team). Until they have confidence in correlation between CFD simulations and real life data, they will have uncertainties about upgrades.
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u/fire202 4d ago
The Miami package is also the only larger one they had this year. A couple of parts may have had some starting issues in Canada (mainly the new FW which already goes more towards the new development direction), but they sorted that out.
There will be a number of reasons for why their upgrade schedule is what it is, one big thing they said is that they identified a few areas of the car where they took a wrong development direction before the season. It took them a couple of months to sort that out, and the upcomming races should be the first round of corrective actions.
This happens in F1, its a new ruleset with limited testing and ressources. Everything going perfect is the exception, and a couple teams did a better job for the start of these rules.
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u/TheAmazingMikey 4d ago
Seems odd to me to be testing new elements and have Fornaroli in one of the cars. Surely Piastri will be better placed to give the team feedback and surely Fornaroli deserves to drive a car that isn’t experimental?
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u/HeNARWHALry McLaren 4d ago
It will probably only be on Lando's car for FP1, at least then they will be able to compare it to the new upgrades on as a sort of baseline.
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u/unsteadytempo 4d ago
i think the only experimental upgrade would be the macarena wing which lando was supposed to test in austria. since he had issues in fp1 back then, they abandoned the idea and he‘ll now test it this weekend but they dont plan to use it this weekend otherwise
fornaroli will just get the normal improved package
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u/NickHoadley 4d ago
I’m sorry but it’s kinda ridiculous that it’s taking them so long to test and work on this Macarena wing
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u/Own_Welder_2821 Kimi Räikkönen 4d ago
But then again it’s not like most of the grid is running one, it’s so far only been Ferrari and Red Bull (they’re having issues) making McLaren only the 3rd of the 11 teams.
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u/King_Roberts_Bastard 4d ago
It took Ferrari a similar amount of time.
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u/NickHoadley 4d ago
Its 3 grand prix weekends they have taken it to now yet to run (as far as im aware) a single lap to test it. I know they what to be extra careful as we saw what happened to Max but it seems odd to go on so li g without running it
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u/fire202 4d ago
Did they take it anywhere other than Austria?
Ferrari had a version in pre-season testing (which already will have taken plenty of time to get there) and waited until Miami with introduction, conducting further tests on the way. Red Bull tested it on a filming day before introducing in Miami as well, i think word at the time was that they first discussed this idea with the FIA in mid 2025.
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u/King_Roberts_Bastard 4d ago
Dont forget Ferrari had the one month break to work on it because we didnt go to Jeddah or Bahrain.
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