The McLaren team enjoyed a great first test in Barcelona, but everything went wrong when they reached Bahrain, where they encountered problems with overheating of the brakes.
That limited the testing they were able to do, and put the team on a tightrope for the F1 debut last weekend, where it also struggled with lack of grip, with neither Lando Norris nor Daniel Ricciardo finishing in the points.
Those from Woking admit that the brake problems in Bahrain caught them completely by surprise, and that they have not yet been fully resolved, since getting to the solution is not easy.
Reflecting on the circumstances that triggered this, James Key, the team’s technical director, says that the original brake duct design met all the criteria McLaren had in mind, but that they did not anticipate other influences from the regulation changes. of 2022.
“I think in a way it shows how new these cars are and how much there is still to learn about how to make them right,” he explained.
“I think the brake duct thing was a really weird anomaly in that it met all the criteria we had for cooling and yet it didn’t work.
“You think, ‘Well, what the hell is going on in there?’ So you look into it and you realize there’s a certain condition, that’s popped up in this circuit, where it basically shuts down internally.”
Key said the phenomenon sparked a massive backlash at the McLaren factory to try to find solutions, with changes provisional for the Bahrain GP weekend.
“They did a fantastic job of recognizing the problem very quickly,” he explained. “Solutions have been proposed from the aerodynamic point of view, from the flow duct perspective, and they’ve built it into the design and then they’ve put a big push into production to bring it [to Bahrain].”
“It’s been quite some time since we had to do something like this, so it’s been an excellent reaction from the team.”
McLaren said it is currently assessing changes to the brakes for this weekend’s race in Saudi Arabia and the following test in Australia.
Woking boss Andreas Seidl explained: “The team is now working hard obviously to get the new parts on track. But we are still working out exactly what will hit the track for Jeddah and the subsequent race in Melbourne”.
