TECH REVIEW: How has McLaren’s downforce level reveal their competitive advantage?

Following a three-week summer break, Zandvoort plays host to Round 15 this weekend. F1Technical’s senior writer Balazs Szabo analyses the aerodynamic configurations teams have elected to run at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Running through the dunes on the North Sea coast, just under 40 kilometres from the capital of the Netherlands, Amsterdam, a lap of the Zandvoort track is 4.259 kilometres in length, similar to the Hungaroring that hosted the last race ahead of the summer break.

It boasts 14 low to medium speed corners – four to the left and ten to the right – of which the third and last are banked at angles of 19 and 18 degrees respectively, much steeper than the turns at Indianapolis.

These corners generate very high vertical and lateral loads on the tyres, which requires the teams to pay close attention to set-up and management of the car-tyre package.

Due to the medium- and high-speed corners, the aerodynamic downforce level required is very high, forcing teams to run high-load rear wings.

Mercedes have seemingly opted for the highest loaded rear wing. The main plane sports a pronounced spoon-shaped central section, whilst the steep flap does not feature any cut-outs.

The Brackley-based team’s choice is clearly paying dividends in Sector 2 which incorporates a series of long-radius , sligthly banked medium-speed corners as George Russell has been very competitive in the middle part of the track across the practice sessions.

At first, Red Bull have elected to run a similar downforce level, albeit the RB21’s rear wing has a less pronounced central section, and the outer section of its leading edge follows more of a sinus-line to cut drag at the expense of some downforce loss.

Ferrari and McLaren have elected to mount a significantly less-loaded rear wing configuration at Zandvoort. Although the SF25’s flap is steep with square corners to generate a high level of downforce, the main plane is relatively flat and does not follow the design direction of the spoon-shaped rear wing of Mercedes or Red Bull.

McLaren’s real competitive form and technical advantage in terms of overall downforce are revealed by their choice of rear wing for the Zandvoort circuit.

The MCL39’s rear wing sports a steep flap without any cut-outs. However, the outer section of its leading edge features an ascending, sinus-esque line in a bid to trim drag.

The most striking feature of McLaren’s rear wing for Zandvoort is the flat main plane which has a pronounced central section, but it sports a heavily trimmed outer section.

Despite this bold choice, McLaren have the quickest throughout Sector 2 where downforce is a decisive factor due o its long-radius corners.

This confirms that McLaren are able to sacrifice some overall downforce in a bid to make the MCL39 competitive down the main straight, but still manage to remain strong through the challenging medium-speed turns.