By Carlo Platella
Red Bull calls, McLaren answers. At Silverstone the world champions introduce a new floor on the RB20 in an attempt to gain an advantage over the Woking team, which however does not sit idly by. For the home race The MCL38 hits the track with an updated hood to improve cooling efficiency, but above all with a new rear wing package that will also come in handy at Spa.
Bonnet tweaks
The general update on the MCL38 concerns the bodywork. Despite the low cooling requirements of the English track, where between high speeds and low temperatures the evacuation of heat is certainly not a problem, two new openings appear on the bonnet, absent instead in the hotter races such as Barcelona and Austria. McLaren creates a vent on each side in correspondence with the push-rod of the suspension, thus mitigating the harmful impact on the aerodynamics caused by the exit of the hot air. The work carried out in Woking aims to improve cooling efficiencyreducing aerodynamic drag thanks to the resizing of the other vents and the upper grilles.
In search of speed
McLaren then introduces some specific adaptations for the needs of the English trackwhere aerodynamic efficiency is the master, which will also be precious in the next stages of the calendar. The MCL38 sports a new medium-low load rear wing, created with the same setup as the previous specification, retouched if anything in the geometry of the wing profiles. The English rear wing is then accompanied by a package of three low, medium and high load beam wings, developed to optimize the aerodynamic interaction with the new upper wing.
The Woking team is equipping itself with new tools to improve the ratio between load and aerodynamic resistance, seeking that speed on the straight that the MCL38 lacked at the start of the season. Silverstone will be an important exam test to judge McLaren’s progress in terms of aerodynamic efficiency, as will be the appointment at the end of the month in Spa. A year ago in Belgium the papaya cars left important tenths on the straight, but the prospects for this year are decidedly different, now being able to count also on the package introduced at Silverstone.
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