F1 News
McLaren shows Norris and Piastri new wind tunnel
- GPblog.com
McLaren is by no means having a good start to the 2023 season. From testing in Bahrain, the British team knew that the car's design was not a great success. Possibly the wind tunnel played a role in this. McLaren has so far been using an outdated wind tunnel in the German city of Cologne. That will soon change.
McLaren failed to collect a single point in two races. Indeed, based on the results in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are nineteen and twenty in the standings. Partly because of the poorer results, McLaren announced a major restructuring last week. Thus, technical director James Key disappeared from the scene and McLaren will have multiple technical management.
New people for aerodynamics
Meanwhile, it is clear that the team has recruited around 15 newcomers, who will work on the car's aerodynamics. Among them is Mariano Alperin, who comes over from Aston Martin. Experts from Mercedes and Red Bull are also making the move to McLaren. For some of their work, they will soon no longer have to go to Cologne, but can simply stay in their own Woking.
By mid-June, the new wind tunnel should be operational. Preparations are obviously at an advanced stage, as Norris and Piastri saw during a tour of the wind tunnel, just before the pair travelled to Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix. On Twitter, McLaren shared some pictures of this visit.
Coming online. We took Lando and Oscar on a tour of our new state-of-the-art wind tunnel housed at the McLaren Technology Centre.
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) March 28, 2023
Another step forward in our mission back to the front. pic.twitter.com/FOK3LN5KFj