F1 | McLaren: when the beam wing helps find balance

McLaren is “afraid” of breaking the magic balance it has found on the MCL38. The Woking team is aware of the step forward that Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes will try to make in the month leading up to the next round in Austin, but Rob Marshall’s technical staff is afraid that an update to the papaya car could change the balance found that perfectly adapts this single-seater to the characteristics of each circuit.

Adding aerodynamic load is the aspiration of every chief designer, but if adding more downforce means affecting the stability of the car, making it more difficult to drive with sudden changes in behaviour between low and high speed sections of the track, increasing tyre degradation, perhaps it is better to proceed gradually.

In his winning run in Singapore, Lando Norris built up an advantage over Max Verstappen’s RB20, which even reached half a minute: a sidereal technical superiority over the rest of the group that allowed the English driver to successfully start from pole (it was time he erased what by now seemed like a syndrome) and impose an attacking race right from the start, while other opponents expected a controlled start to the GP for a much more tactical race.

McLaren has consolidated a superiority that was clearly visible in Singapore, but this will not always be the case in the six races that remain on the calendar. An update package is ready in Woking that also includes an evolution of the floor, but before getting to the point of touching on what works, they prefer to proceed with caution, analyzing piece by piece which elements work and which could affect the balance, while still guaranteeing more downforce.

It is interesting, then, to go and measure how McLaren manages to adapt the MCL38 to the different circuits with interventions that do not concern the floor, but more generally the wings, the front one, obviously the rear one and the beam wing.

Detail of the flexible front wing of the McLaren MCL38 seen in Singapore

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Considering that the downforce is generated by 60-70% of the floor, the function of the wing profiles becomes important on ground effect single-seaters to make the car suitable for the different characteristics of the tracks. It is no secret to anyone that the front wing with the very flexible last flap allows the McLaren to work in a window in which the floor expresses on average the greatest possible load, avoiding those peaks that could guarantee more downforce, but also strong instability.

This is why the rear beam wing, together with the different rear wing configurations (now the Woking team satisfies all gradations: low, medium and high downforce) always manages to find a balance superior to the other top teams.

The McLaren MCL38’s beam wing in the Silverstone vs Singapore comparison

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

In Giorgio Piola’s drawing it is possible to see the comparison between the low wing at Silverstone, where only the lower element was used, and the one on Sunday in Singapore, where there was a second element that was almost flat, but functional to increase the load without penalising aerodynamic efficiency too much.

If the lower wing, designed to be a continuation of the diffuser, has always had a long chord and a rather marked incidence, the second element was the most variable: on the fastest tracks it could even be removed, while in Monaco and Hungary we saw the most loaded version. During the evolution of the season, however, the upper beam wing has evolved: in Zandvoort it was almost flat and with a reduced chord, while in Marina Bay a flat solution appeared, but with a long chord.

Comparison of the beam wings of the McLaren MCL38 from Zandvoort and Singapore with those from Monaco and Hungary

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Peter Prodromou, aerodynamicist from Woking, knows where to put his hands to not break that balance magnificently found with adjustments to the car that are less striking than those of his opponents.