McLaren Make Big Changes for Simpler Design

Could a new exhaust and floor make all the difference for McLaren?

21 March 2011

We’ve come to learn about a pretty major change to the McLaren car and the hopes are that it will eliminate the reliability issues that they have been suffering over the winter period. The major areas to be looked at are the floor and exhaust system; the floor has been completely changed and the complex exhaust system has been brought back to a simple design. Martin Whitmarsh, the team principal for McLaren says that the new changes made before the Australian Grand Prix will give the McLaren car roughly a one-second per lap improvement over what they have been seeing in the tests so far. The team are aiming for victory now and they firmly believe that making these simple changes are going to get McLaren off to a decent start and hopefully clear up all the issues they have been having with the car. I really hope that this sorts out the problems we’ve been seeing McLaren have, it would be awful to see them struggle through the first few Grand Prixs and waste essential points. It’s going to be risky but let’s wait and see what happens.