McLaren praise 'game changer' F1 rule

McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has praised the Formula 1 aerodynamic testing restrictions [ATR] that were introduced to help equalise the field.

The ATR rules came into effect in 2021 alongside the budget cap, which acts as a handicap system to limit the amount of aerodynamic testing a team can do during a season.

The higher up the Constructors' Championship a team finishes, the fewer wind tunnel runs and computational fluid dynamics items are allowed. This will then be reset after six months to reflect the current pecking order.

For example, Aston Martin finished in seventh last year which meant the team received an allocation of 100% wind tunnel testing time during the winter.

But when the reset came into effect on June 30th it was third, so it has now been adjusted to 80% of testing time.

McLaren is currently in sixth which means it gets 95% of the time, which translates to 304 wind tunnel runs and 1,900 CFD items.

"We certainly welcome having a few more hours than the top teams," Stella told media including RacingNews365.

"It looks like we now have [more] good ideas to bring to the wind tunnel.

"You can have many, many hours in the wind tunnel but the real game changer is the quality of the ideas and the quality of the concepts you put in the wind tunnel development.

"Now we seem to be in a good position from this point of view, so we welcome the extra hours."