The disqualifications of both McLarens from the Las Vegas Grand Prix is a cold shower for the Woking team, with Max Verstappen, after his victory, now firmly within striking distance - now just 24 points behind Lando Norris in the standings.
In qualifying, McLaren had opted for a more loaded aerodynamic set-up than would have been ideal, effectively replicating the choice which Mercedes had made in 2024. This choice boiled down to a wing configuration akin to Spa, thus capable of generating greater downforce - handy for speeding up getting temperature into the tyres.
According to Andrea Stella's official statement, the excessive scrapping, which led to the disqualification of both Norris and Oscar Piastri, seems to have been caused by porpoising, which was not present in practice or qualifying, but it is known that the phenomenon worsens with particularly low ride-heights.
The race itself was held in dry conditions, unlike practice and qualifying, which led to the critical mistake made by McLaren.
During the race, the greater grip produced by the set-up allowed higher speeds, thus creating greater vertical load.
The stiffness of the MCL39's torsion bars ultimately proved insufficient to stem the frequent bottoming out of the car, and not having carried out any long run simulations in practice on slick tyres, the miscalculation was not discovered.
In part, the error was prompted by the team's desire to improve the performance of the car on a track McLaren knew it would be ill-suited to on paper.
McLaren arrived not with the intention of damage limitation, rather they were trying to overturn the technical predictions and pushing the limits of the set-up to increase performance - i.e lowering the ride-height.
That long runs in practice were not carried out on slicks meant that the simulator predictions on porpoising, even in the case of a possible discrepancy of half a millimetre, had a devastating effect.
Some would argue that with the constructors' in the bag and a comfortable lead in the drivers' standings, McLaren could have been more conservative with its set-up, potentially resulting in a fifth or sixth-place finish due to the sub-par performance.
But even finishing sixth to Verstappen winning would have had Norris drop 17 points to the Dutchman, as opposed to the 25 he actually did...
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