F1 | McLaren: a more loaded set-up chosen for the risk of rain

Qualifying at Silverstone represented a sort of missed opportunity for McLaren, with team errors and driver mistakes preventing them from exploiting and realising the potential that would have allowed them to aim for pole position.

Andrea Stella did not hide a hint of bitterness for not having managed to bring even one of the two MCL38s to the front row and, although it is true that the disappointment for the missed pole cannot be erased, on the other hand days like these represent a lesson to continue to grow also from the point of view of operations on the track.

After a less than perfect first lap, Lando Norris made some mistakes in his last attempt in Q3 that led him to abort the lap, having to settle for third place. On the other side of the pits, however, a mix of factors deprived Oscar Piastri of a better position on the grid: if in the first run the Australian was unable to complete a clean lap, the second attempt was heavily affected by traffic. The choice to let him go out on the track so late led him to fight in the outlap with Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso, effectively conditioning the lap.

“I think from a potential point of view, we could have got a pole position today. But in the last attempt in Q3, we couldn’t put all the pieces together,” commented the Team Principal at the end of qualifying.

In a context in which McLaren did not fully exploit its potential and in which Max Verstappen was affected by the damage to the floor that, according to Christian Horner, cost him about three tenths, Mercedes was able to take advantage of the situation once again by scoring an entire front row. For the Woking team, third place still represents a good starting position on the grid, especially considering that the race could be affected by rain.

In fact, McLaren had expected rain to arrive already in qualifying, which they thought would be wet from start to finish. On the contrary, after a short initial period on intermediates, the track quickly dried, allowing them to switch to slicks already in Q1. Precisely in anticipation of a wet qualifying and race, the engineers had thought of modifying the car’s set-up, abandoning the wing tested on Friday for a more loaded solution.

For the home event, in fact, the British team showed up with a more unloaded rear wing to improve aerodynamic efficiency, alongside various beam wing configurations. A choice that, as anticipated on Friday, had guaranteed good references in extension, being able to then exploit the load generated by the floor to still have good stability in the fast corners. On the contrary, other teams, such as Red Bull, immediately started with more loaded solutions.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

During the season McLaren has worked intensively on the types of rear wings, arriving at creating five different types depending on the aerodynamic needs. Precisely in anticipation of the arrival of the rain, therefore, the Woking team was able to play with the configurations, dusting off the wing used last week in Austria, which guarantees something more in terms of downforce.

“We are still in a good position for tomorrow’s race. It will be a potentially weather-influenced race, so there will be a lot of variables at play. And the fact that there are those variables is also one of the reasons why the teams are playing with the load,” Stella explained.

“For example, in the end we opted for a slightly more loaded solution than the one on Friday. Because we saw that this morning with the intermediate tyres there was little grip and the track was quite slippery. We therefore wanted to be prepared for qualifying, which we expected to be wet, even if it turned out to be less slippery than we expected, as well as for the race”.