The restraint that’s helped McLaren avoid widespread car floor pain

After introducing a significant car upgrade package, McLaren dominated the Dutch Grand Prix straight out of the 2024 Formula 1 summer break. That’s a familiar story for the championship, but the details of this case are actually quite different.

McLaren’s brake, suspension, wings and floor edge update introduced at Zandvoort was its biggest package since it’d rather transformed the MCL38 with 10 altered areas, including a completely revised floor, in Miami. But this time, it didn’t comprehensively alter the car’s floor – the key area for adding downforce in a ground-effect era.

But McLaren has been working on this area – using its new wind tunnel, which has also provided a boost compared to the older facilities (and indeed those of other teams, as Aston Martin is doing with Mercedes until its new one is complete) at other squads. McLaren has just not changed much floor-wise for a while because it has seen potential pitfalls in its development data when it comes to adding it to its real car.

“[We’d seen] that, had we pressed the go button, we might have had some doubts when these parts were tested full-scale,” team principal Andrea Stella said at Monza last time out. “So, we are taking our time to convince ourselves that the development is mature [enough] to be taken trackside.”

McLaren has also witnessed how floor development can have an adverse impact for a 2024 car, even if the design numbers are saying downforce will be increased overall. This is what has happened for several of its frontrunning rivals.

The most-high profile case has been at Ferrari, where the Italian team’s Barcelona floor update triggered car bouncing in high-speed corners. This robbed its drivers of confidence in such turns and therefore lap time too.

Aston Martin has had to reverse its way out of the upgrade package it introduced back at Imola, which included a new floor, while Mercedes has been putting its latest floor off and on the W15 ever since it first appeared at Spa.

But most significantly for the story of F1 2024 – and McLaren’s unexpected championship challenge – is how Red Bull has been tripped up on the RB20’s development through the year. It suspects its Imola floor update set off its subsequent pain.

McLaren, in holding back on further floor development until satisfied it will avoid these problems, as…