Mark Hughes on the new McLaren MCL60

On Monday, the McLaren team unveiled the MCL60, the 2023 car. According to Mark Hughes, a technical expert on the championship’s official website, the concept of the previous model has been further developed and the car should be free of the shortcomings that plagued the team drivers last year.

The new McLaren MCL60 is first and foremost a further evolution of last year’s MCL36, which the team has upgraded extensively throughout the season. McLaren immediately warned that the car will be significantly improved in the future, but early on in the season it will look something like the one presented at Woking today.

Judging by all the cars already presented in 2023, the team’s main focus is on improving soil efficiency, using the ground effect principle. Improving this area will allow you to achieve a more noticeable increase in speed than completing body parts and wings.

Any changes in the external geometry of the machines are merely derivatives of efforts to achieve more efficient soil operation. We can see, for example, that McLaren designers created a noticeable space under the front of the side pontoons (probably by moving the radiators) to more freely position the intake elements of the venturi tunnels located under the underbody. You can see that the shape of these elements has been completely revised.

The technical regulations give a lot of freedom in choosing the height at which the inlet section of the tunnels can be placed, and it seems McLaren has been able to change the angle at which these elements are oriented. The aim of this decision is to strike an ever-elusive balance between a good amount of downforce and the stability of the car’s behavior in corners. This task is very difficult to solve under the current regulations, many teams had similar problems last year, not just McLaren.

Lando Norris pushed for this direction to complete the car in 2022, as well as Daniel Ricciardo, who is no longer working with the team.

“For my part, I demanded what I needed,” Lando said when presenting the MCL60. “I have spent a lot of time discussing all this in detail with the engineers so that they understand the problems we are facing, because certain aspects have not changed much for years.

But this year I have shown more perseverance. Maybe the new car suits me better, but that’s not the only thing: the MCL60 also has to be faster. Daniel and I often complained about the lack of speed. If we manage to take a step forward in that area, the riders can squeeze more out of the car.”

The suspension design remained the same: pushers in the front, traction in the rear. The change in the upper part of the side pontoons was probably prompted by a different arrangement of the radiators.

McLaren intends to compete for fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship, but they are cautiously talking about it, not just that they may not reach this level immediately. But the next set of technical updates are already in the plans, are being worked on and will only be completed after a few races.