While the all-digital event meant that no photographer could get up close and personal with the car, McLaren still took no chances when it came to hiding parts that people weren’t supposed to see.
Concealment has a long history when F1 teams deliver their newest challengers with hidden, missing, or parted parts that bear little resemblance to those originally intended for racing.
The reveal of the MCL35M was no different as the official launch images showed how the car’s diffuser area was properly hidden.
Luckily for us, the team used up one of their promotional / filming days at Silverstone on Tuesday – so we had the right chance to see some of the aspects of the car that weren’t visible the first time around.
We found that out …
Hopes of uncovering these design secrets were initially dashed when the images from Silverstone continued to deliberately darken the relevant parts of the car.
Camera angles of moving images and photos were either strictly from the front or from the side. Or the video view specifically faded out close-ups from certain areas of the car when leaving the pit lane.
But luck was on our side in the end, as footage later released by the team allowed us to identify key areas of interest – especially those revolving around the new aero rules for 2021.
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These changes aim to reduce downforce by around 10 percent and include a diagonal section of the floor cut out in front of the rear tires, with no fully closed holes being allowed in the outer 100mm of the floor.
In addition, 40mm has been removed from the lower half of the rear brake duct winglets and 50mm from the bottom of the diffuser strakes.
Upon inspection of the MCL35M that hit the circuit at Silverstone, we can see that it had a different bargeboard cluster, sidepod deflector array, and a new floor.
The deflector array is more similar to what the team used in the second half of 2020 (below), but the foremost element now only has a small support that extends to the ax tip of the ground (red arrow).
Another set of flow conditioning blades was placed here. In the meantime, the middle bridge panel (blue) has been exchanged for a trio of lamellas, similar to those already installed in the lower area of the array.
It’s also worth noting that some small changes have been made to the shape of the wing mirrors and their stems (black arrow), indicating design changes to the bargeboard elements underneath that they must shade for legal reasons.
There seem to be other subtle changes to the bargeboards as well, but we’ll have to wait for the car to come out in tests to fully analyze them.
McLaren made subtle changes to the bargeboard area of the MCL35M.
According to the regulations, the new diagonal cut-out is available in the floor at the rear of the car. This is a feature McLaren first tested in the real world when testing a solution at the Belgian GP.
However, it’s another feature that was on and off the car throughout 2020 that is actually of great interest.
The Silverstone MCL35M had the raised L-shaped body in front of the rear tire, which was first tested in the first race of the season at the Austrian GP.
The trailing edge of the floor has been trimmed by F1 regulations for 2021.
That kind of extra flap in front of the rear tire is likely to be a feature used up and down the grid as teams look for ways to regain the performance lost by the various slots and completely closed holes in the ground this year.
Haas also tested a similar solution in combination with a floor trimmed in Abu Dhabi, while Ferrari tried several different solutions over the course of the season, mostly focusing on the edge of the floor.
