Explaining F1’s phantom updates and why McLaren do have a new front wing after all

Formula One has arrived at the Spanish Grand Prix, where the long-awaited revisions to the front wing load and deflection tests are in operation for the first time this season.

Reading the room it would appear that many believed this would lead to some sizable and visible changes to the arrangements in use, but for the most part that is not the case.

Not everything is as it appears

It seems that the team everyone assumed would be affected the most by the revisions to the load and deflection tests was going to be McLaren, with the likes of Red Bull pushing hard to have their perceived advantage eroded.

Time will tell whether there’s a competitive adjustment to the pecking order in response to this but with all of the teams taking advantage of flexi-wings, to one degree or another, it might only result in a small change to the gaps between competitors. Furthermore, given the teams have had an extended period of time to prepare for these changes, they should have an understanding of how to best set up their car to avoid a major drop-off in performance.

And, whilst there was an expectation that everyone would introduce a new front wing assembly in Spain, only seven of the ten teams have announced a new design, with McLaren, Mercedes and Alpine retaining designs that we’ve seen from them already this season.

McLaren might well be the ultimate outlier here though, as both Mercedes and Alpine announced their new front wing designs at Imola, via the car presentation document and have used them thereafter.

Meanwhile, McLaren did trial their revised front wing layout in Imola, on Lando Norris’ MCL39 during Free Practice (above) and even installed their own camera arrangement to monitor the wing’s behaviour (arrowed).

However, McLaren didn’t announce any changes via the car presentation document at that event or any that preceded it either, nor did they have to. Now, I appreciate that might seem strange given the reliance that everyone has seemingly built up on that document in regards to establishing what’s been changed by the teams on a race-by-race basis. However, it’s perfectly acceptable for teams not to list items if they’re not considered changes to ‘major aerodynamic and bodywork components and assemblies’.

In McLaren’s case there’s only two small visible changes to the front wing arrangement, with an extra metal horseshoe-style slot gap bracket added between the two upper flaps and a modification to the orientation of the adjuster bracket. It would appear that those changes appear to deal more exclusively with the revised point load test, where there’s now a 3mm tolerance, rather than 5mm.

More on the flexi-wing TD

👉 What you can really expect to see from the FIA’s new flexi-wing test

👉 McLaren changes uncovered as teams prepare for tougher F1 wing checks

However, with the rest of the design geometrically the same as before you could be mistaken for believing that there’s absolutely nothing changed with the rest of the wing, which could be the case but it also doesn’t rule out that the team have altered the wing’s structure.

That’s because the actual layup of the wing doesn’t need to be disclosed either, which could mean that whilst the wing’s elements remain visually the same the internal structure and/or carbon fibre could have been laid-up in a way that resists the forces imparted on it more than its predecessor.

The issue faced by the rest of the field, is it’s all relative and so while McLaren might feel some pain in terms of their performance when comparing how the car behaves now versus with the front wing used in previous races, the same can be said for everyone on the grid, as everyone was exploiting the flexi-wing to some extent. And, this is why the FIA didn’t change just one of the load and deflection tests either, as each team had their own way of achieving the desired effect.