McLaren keen to 'manipulate' return of key F1 trick in title fight

McLaren believes "there will be more freedom to manipulate" a key F1 car trick in the new generation of rules.

In 2026, the new cars feature the return of the 'rake' - a trick where the front of the car is run lower to the ground than the rear in a bid to increase downforce, and thus performance.

This was a constant presence during the 2017-2021 rules cycle, before the ground effects era took away the trick as the floors were required to be as flat as possible from front to back to generate the downforce.

The reigning constructors' champions believe that the 2026 cars are a halfway house between the two philosophies, but that there will be "more freedom" to finetune the set-up. 

"The 2021 and earlier cars, in terms of the way they looked, the cars were set up with higher ride heights, then we went into the 2022-2025 era with the underfloor tunnels and aerodynamic performance," performance technical director Mark Temple, who was previously race engineer to Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, explained to media including RacingNews365. 

"In terms of the aerodynamic characteristics for 2026, we are somewhere between the two. It is neither one nor the other, and it is also not exactly in-between them. 

"I think it will be a bit less as you don't have the extreme sensitivity to ride height that we had in previous years, and there will be more freedom to manipulate the car attitude to affect the handling without making the car go slower.

"It is still a Formula 1 car, the fundamental principles are still there, the power unit performance, the aerodynamic performance and how well you exploit the tyres.

"These are the primary performance differentiators in terms of if the aerodynamic packages will translate from our tools to delivering on track. 

"There are some aspects of the new regulations that make the aerodynamics more complicated, and I'm not sure unpredictable is the word, but let's say it will be harder to predict on track, and part of that is being relatively early in the regulation cycle."