McLaren will finally put its upside-down rear wing concept to the test this weekend at the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest.
The British team arrives in Hungary with a significant upgrade package centred around a redesigned floor and further aerodynamic parts aimed at closing the gap to its rivals.
McLaren has openly admitted its MCL40 has been running two to three months behind competitors in terms of aerodynamic development, a situation the team is eager to correct.
A first major overhaul was introduced across the Miami and Montreal weekends, with various smaller updates following before this more substantial Hungarian package.
McLaren’s senior director of racing Randy Singh said: “We have an upgrade package arriving this weekend, and in such a competitive season every development is important so it will be great to gather further understanding on how those parts perform throughout free practice.”
Singh added: “Our aim is to maximise everything we have available, carry positive momentum into the shutdown and put ourselves in the strongest possible position for the second half of the championship.”
Team boss Andrea Stella recently acknowledged the pace of progress, saying: “The development on the ground has been quite strong for a few months now. This has led to the upgrades we had in Miami and now there will be another round of upgrades which will come in Hungary and then after the shutdown.”
McLaren has struggled to match Mercedes, who dominated large portions of the season, while Ferrari’s strong upgrade cycle put both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton in grand prix winning positions.
Stella was direct about the team’s situation, saying: “It’s difficult to lean on the range of performance that Ferrari and Mercedes are operating in at the moment, but hopefully as of Hungary we will start to see a bit of an acceleration in our competitiveness.”
He continued: “We have now a clear direction in terms of development, but in some areas of the car it took a couple of months to get it to be realised. So, we should see in Hungary the first results of this approach and then hopefully more and more upgrades for the rest of the season.”
Beyond the floor-led upgrade package, McLaren will also trial its own version of the so-called ‘Macarena’ rear wing, a concept first debuted by Ferrari in winter testing that sees the rear wing mainplane rotate 180 degrees when Straight Mode is activated.
McLaren had originally planned to run the wing in FP1 at Austria, but problems in the garage forced the team to return the wing to the factory for further fine tuning before it could be properly evaluated.
The wing is confirmed to run only in FP1 at Budapest and is not scheduled to be fully introduced at either the Hungarian or Dutch Grand Prix.
A successful test in Hungary could pave the way for a full race introduction at a high-speed, drag-sensitive circuit such as Monza or Baku later in the season.
Red Bull’s troubled experience with its own ‘Macarena’ concept has illustrated the potential risks involved, with Max Verstappen suffering two alarming spins at Spielberg and Silverstone before the team withdrew the design for the Belgian Grand Prix.
Red Bull is also targeting an improved version of its upside-down wing for Hungary, meaning both teams could be evaluating the concept at the same event for the first time.