McLaren explain reason for delay in unleashing key new F1 upgrade

McLaren boss Andrea Stella has explained the factors behind the team's decision to remove a new front-wing design it introduced in Canada. 

The new design was taken off the MCL40s of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in Montreal ahead of Sprint Qualifying, but was reintroduced in Barcelona. 

It was the first time that a McLaren upgrade had not immediately succeeded since the team began its upward curve with its huge package across the 2023 Austrian and British GPs.

Detailing what had happened in the decision to take the upgrade off in Montreal, team principal Stella explained that "modifications" were required to fully extract the maximum from the new part.

"The front wing is a project that took a couple of races to understand exactly how to use it, what it was delivering," Stella told media, including RacingNews365.

"We saw there were some aspects which were not only aerodynamic, but also some from a mechanical point of view, which needed to be evolved.

"We took a couple of modifications since the first time we introduced it, and these modifications were effective, so we are happy now with the performance and the correlation of the data compared to the development tools we used on both cars. 

"I would like to praise the effort of the team, who have been extremely responsive, once we saw that there were a few things that needed to be made and needed to be designed and produced, and we did it for Monaco, and then there were a few more, and we did them for Spain. 

"So I would say this completes the first round of upgrades of the car. We are obviously working on some more upgrades, but these are more than large packages. We will see a continuous development in the various areas of the car, because the design itself, and this is true for everyone, is still so immature."