McLaren hunt bigger picture for Baku F1 upgrades

 The McLaren F1 team will enter the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with its first major upgrades for 2023 in a bid to further close the midfield gap.

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris’ MCL60 will get what the team are calling major upgrades to the floor and side pods, as they look to play catch up on a car that they weren’t in the least bit happy with to begin the season.

This present upgrade was signed off prior to James Key leaving, but the future second up-grade is set to be more wide ranging, and will involve the input of its new technical team headed by Peter Prodromou, Neil Houldey and David Sanchez.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri and CEO Zak Brown with the new MCL60 prior to the season

With some suggestions that Baku is a risky place to do it given there’s only one Practice session, ahead of the season’s first Sprint Race, team principal Andrea Stella dismissed any calibration concerns.

“The improvement in Baku should affect an area of the car that it has been clear that – I think from the presentation of the car – we weren’t entirely happy with in terms of development,” Stella said.

“It’s just the first step, we would definitely expect another major upgrade, which will interest more areas of the car.

“If there’s no anomalous behaviour, then it’s relatively easy. In modern Formula 1, you have the data, and you can read the aerodynamic performance through the forces that you measure and through the pressure map around the gap around the car that you measure to the dozens of pressure sensors,” he said, in terms of any calibration concerns, adding that:

“We are not too worried in terms of assessing whether it’s possible or not, unless there are some anomalies. But, so far, I have to say that the cars are proving to be correlating well with the development. That’s why we decided to introduce it, even if it’s a sprint race.”

McLaren will add upgrades to the floor and side pods for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, with more major upgrades to come throughout the year

Piastri himself, fresh off scoring the first points of his F1 career in front of an adoring home crowd in Melbourne, says it’s a good set forward in improving throughout the year.

“I think it’ll definitely help us to move closer to the front of the grid. I’m sure all the other teams have got upgrades of their own as well,” Piastri said. 

“And I think what we’ve got coming in Baku is a good step in what is a bigger plan throughout the rest of the season. So it’ll help a bit, definitely, and get us on the right track, I hope.”

“But I think we are not underestimating that everyone else will probably have new parts as well, so we’ll see how much competitiveness we gain from that.”

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In terms of the later continued development, Stella clarified the plans for a little further down the line between the major breaks.

“So, we have three main steps: Baku, later on before shutdown, and then after shutdown,” he continued.

“And we hope that each of them will be able to provide a few tenths of a second, so that we put ourselves in a more realistic position to meet our ambition to become a top four car towards the end of the season.”

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