As the Miami Grand Prix is a sprint race weekend, teams have only a single hour of practice before the first qualifying session.
However McLaren have not allowed the limited set-up time to deter them from bringing what appears to be the biggest upgrade any team has introduced since the season began.
“Obviously on a sprint weekend it makes it a little bit more difficult to get the most out of them, because you’ve only got one practice session, but it should hopefully be a decent step forward,” said Oscar Piastri.
McLaren could scarcely afford to wait, for having two sprint race weekends back-to-back means this stretch of the calendar features a six-week spell in which teams do not have the luxury of three practice sessions during a race weekend. And unlike last year, McLaren and their rivals are not entirely locked in to their set-ups from Friday onwards.
The swathe of new mechanical and aerodynamic parts for the MCL38 will immediately prompt questions whether the team can pull off another of the leaps forward in performance seen with its two major upgrades last year in Austria and Singapore.
“Trying to stay on the trajectory from last year is what we’re aiming to do,” said Piastri. “But obviously as you get closer and closer to the limit of these cars and these regs, it becomes harder and harder to do. So we’ll see.
“But the upgrades we pulled off last year always worked well so hopefully we can have a similar kind of effect this year.”
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The update includes changes to the front and rear suspension, which is critical to maintaining the airflow underneath the floor, which is where current F1 cars generate so much of their downforce. McLaren say the MCL38’s floor has been “completely revised” as a result.
The upper aerodynamics package has also been extremely reworked, starting from the front wing, where McLaren said they have achieved a “significant improvement of flow control.” Besides the suspension, the ducts and winglets around the front and rear wheels have also been changed to work in conjunction with the revised bodywork.
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