Formula 1
McLaren explains the development discipline behind its F1 world title
McLaren was the only major Formula 1 team to steer clear of development hurdles in 2024, which didn't happen by accident or fortune
Filip Cleeren
Published: Dec 31, 2024, 12:51 PM
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Avoiding the pitfalls of Formula 1's ground-effect machinery helped McLaren cap a staggering 18-month development curve in 2024 with its first F1 constructors' title for 26 years.
McLaren started 2023 on the back foot, but promised a large upgrade that would revamp its first season under team principal Andrea Stella. That duly arrived in Austria, turning Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri into podium contenders.
Intriguingly enough, the exact same scenario took place in 2024. But this time around, McLaren's base performance was a lot higher and so was its eventual ceiling.
From a humble midfield start, a major update in May's Miami Grand Prix immediately yielded Norris a maiden win. In Hungary Piastri became a winner too and while Norris' title bid against Max Verstappen came up short, the pair delivered enough to edge McLaren ahead of Ferrari and Red Bull by the end of the year.
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Speaking exclusively to Motorsport.com, technical director of engineering Neil Houldey explains the approach McLaren has taken to get there, with its Miami floor just one piece of an elaborate puzzle that paid dividends.
"I think it's fair to say that the floor was the largest performance item of that package, but it was a proportion," said Houldey, one of McLaren's three technical directors in a structure introduced by Stella during the 2023 season.
"We certainly wouldn't have made the step without all of the package together. I would say there was no conscious decision at all to choose Miami, it's about harvesting the aero results when we think they're ready to be put on the car, and that they offer the right amount of performance, and that we're confident in that level of performance.
McLaren was immediately quick in Miami when floor upgrade arrived, helping Norris to end his win drought
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
"And it just happened that all the ideas and all the performance materialised at a very similar stage, and therefore it became a huge package as opposed to a number of in effect smaller packages that worked independently.
"They just came at the same time, which was nice in a way because it showed everyone what we were capable of. The sum of it was really a change in the trajectory of our season."
Not only did the Miami specification deliver a spectacular performance boost, McLaren was also the only big team to avoid getting in trouble by introducing undesirable handling effects by taking a wrong turn in the development of this generation of car's crucial floors.
Red Bull went down the wrong path, making its car harder to balance without adding significant performance, while Mercedes has spent its entire season wondering why its car had such a narrow operating window.
Crucially for McLaren, Ferrari lost months of development by finding its Barcelona floor induced bouncing in high-speed corners, which may well have made the difference in the world championship fight. So, how did McLaren manage to stay clear of any downgrades and avoid those pitfalls where its rivals didn't?
"I can't answer for any other team and I'm sure there are many different reasons why different teams have been taking parts off, putting parts back on again," Houldey said.
"The Miami floor was relatively easy, actually. It had so much performance, it was going to be better in every part of the corner, and there was no concern. It may have caused a little bit more bouncing, it might not, but these were going to be small effects with total lap time.
"The harder one for us was the late season package in Austin where actually the performance wasn't as high, but we'd been so diligent in ensuring that in every trajectory, every part of the corner, it was still better, that we were still confident that it was going to go onto the car and offer us some lap time.
McLaren reaped rewards from being patient and ensuring that all its upgrades would improve the car before being introduced
Photo by: Lubomir Asenov / Motorsport Images
"And I think that's in part because of the way that we have good toolsets, that the CFD and the wind tunnel all give very similar results."
But McLaren has also made sure to remain extremely patient at adding upgrades to the car, rather than being tempted by its sudden title tilt to fast-track upgrades that may not have been fully vetted.
"It's not about 'you must hit this deadline for this race'," explained Houldey. "There's an internal pressure to create performance, of course, but not a real deadline.
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"That means people can develop it without the concern that what they're going to end up with on the car might not be as expected. We weren't compromising in any area of the performance of that floor when we put it on.
"If you do something potentially a little bit too early, because it's what you have to do to get something on the car, you might not be getting the results that you quite expected. Fortunately for us, from Miami onwards, we were still getting the results.
"There definitely wasn't any sort of panic in the team that we had to get an upgrade out. It was 'we'll get the upgrade out when we're ready to get the upgrade out', and we were confident in it delivering on the circuit.
"Because, as you can imagine, you do it any earlier, and you find yourself in a situation where you put it on, you take it off, you put it on, you take it off, you lose so much more than just keeping the old parts on the car from the start."
Seeing other teams struggle with exactly the scenario Houldey describes further reinforced that McLaren was taking the right approach, and it will stick to its guns in 2025 too as the current regulations cycle comes to an end.
McLaren has no reason to deviate away from its disciplined approach in 2025
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
"We saw what other teams were doing and learned a little bit from that, but actually it's more the philosophy of McLaren in ensuring that we're doing the right things for the right reason, putting our performance on the car at the right time," he added.
"I'd like to think we'd have done exactly the same thing anyway, but seeing other teams struggle does make you consider that it's not always easy.
"We know that we need to continue to recognise that. It's not like McLaren has done two upgrades and hasn't taken any off that that means that in the future, we're not going to be in that same situation.
"So, we're very aware that we've still got a lot to learn, and producing any upgrades for 2025 is going to be a very, very similar situation. We need to make sure that they're always positive and there isn't the risk of a downgrade."
Watch: Ranking Autosport's Top 50 Drivers of 2024 - 10 to 1
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