McLaren is being the great revolution in Formula 1. Only a year and a half ago they were the new Minardi on the grid, but now they are about to win the constructors’ world championship for the first time in the 21st century and have Lando Norris fighting for the drivers’ title. And all under one premise: constant improvement.
It is normal that all teams are paying attention to what McLaren does, but there is one that pays special attention. It is about Aston Martin, which uses the same Mercedes engines At the beginning of the season they were not too far away, but they have been shipwrecked in the battle of development. Now they know why, and they think they can imitate McLaren.
McLaren’s new wind tunnel is key, and Aston Martin has its own almost ready
“We are analyzing McLaren a lot and its pace of improvements. We have found some correlations in the improvements that are declared, although we never have the complete picture,” explains Mike Krack, the head of the Aston Martin team, referring to the fact that for some time now the FIA announces in a document the changes of each equipment.
Although Krack does not say it, at Aston Martin, and in many other teams, they are convinced that the key to all McLaren’s improvements work in the wind tunnel. The papaya team launched a completely new wind tunnel in mid-2023, and that would be making the difference compared to other more outdated facilities.
Without going any further, Red Bull’s wind tunnel is more than 20 years oldand Mercedes found a calibration error in theirs in the middle of this season that also affected Aston Martin, which uses the same facilities as Mercedes. That’s where the green team’s hopes for the future come from.
And it is that Aston Martin will debut a new high-tech wind tunnel at the end of this year, and it looks so good that it has convinced Adrian Newey to join the green team and forget the siren song of Ferrari. Newey will work entirely on the 2026 car with that totally modern wind tunnel.
“In the update of McLaren in Zandvoort we find a little here and a little there. These cars have become very fine and complex, it would be absurd not to look at McLaren,” concluded Krack, who believes that the key to the current Formula 1 is no longer just the aerodynamic load, but the stability and balance of the car is more important. .
We will see if the example of McLaren and the new wind tunnel serves to Aston Martin gives them to Fernando Alonso one last attempt at Formula 1.
Source: www.motorpasion.com
