TECH CORNER: McLaren continue to upgrade their MCL39

Despite leading both the Drivers' and Constructors' Championship with a comfortable margin, McLaren continue to upgrade their MCL39. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo explains what the papaya team brought last time out to the Silverstone round.

McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris started from P2 and P3 on the grid last time out at the British Grand Prix. Starting in the wet, the Australian managed to extract more grip from his inters than race-leader Verstappen could and picked off the Dutchman for the lead.

The Melbourne-born driver managed to build up an enormous lead of over 13 seconds over Verstappen and Norris. However, a safety car period meant that the championship leader lost his comfortable lead.

At the second Safety Car restart, Piastri braked heavily, and Verstappen shot past him. The stewards rules that the Australian had not followed procedure and handed him a 10-second time penalty. Just moments after this incident, Verstappen had spun at the exit of Stowe and dropped back.

It left Piastri and Norris at the front of the field, and they managed to build a huge advantage over the field. When the papaya cars pitted for slick tyres, Norris emerged ahead after Piastri served his penalty. That left the Brit to enjoy the last few laps before crossing the line to win his home race for the first time.

Although the wet surface meant that the absolute aerodynamic performance of cars played a significantly smaller role, the qualifying that took place in dry conditions showed that development is still important given the tight nature of the current pecking order.

The Woking-based outfit used to bring upgrades in bigger packages in recent seasons, but they tend to introduce upgraded parts as soon as they are ready this year.

For the Silverstone round, McLaren brought a major floor update, with the championship leaders saying the “complete floor has been revised” to provide “improved flow conditioning and a redistribution of suction” for overall aerodynamic gain”.

In addition to the upgraded floor, McLaren has also introduced new rear brake duct inlets for the British Grand Prix. The team branded the upgraded brake ducts as a performance development, and explained that the target with the new part was to improve flow conditioning.

"Modification to Rear Brake Duct Inlet aiming at overall improvement in local flow conditioning for improved aerodynamic and brake cooling performance," McLaren noted.