F1 News
Does extra wind tunnel time really help? Stella says: 'That's not the case'
- Savannah Lenz
Before McLaren had won the 2024 Constructors' Championship title, they were already thinking about how the reduced wind tunnel time would affect them. Luckily for them, Andrea Stella, McLaren's team principal, had already begun thinking things through before the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
During the Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend, it was still unclear who would take home the constructors championship title. However, that didn't stop Stella from already having some thoughts about the potential reduced wind tunnel time.
Stella thinks early
In the Las Vegas paddock, Stella was asked how much of an impact he expected the reduced wind tunnel time to have on McLaren's 2025 and 2026 cars. Stella did not think it would impact them much. He started off by saying, "First of all, just to state the obvious, you would always take P1 in the Championship and then see how you can improve your efficiency in terms of aerodynamic development in the combination of CFD and wind tunnel time because the two things are compounded and they are restricted as a function of your championship position."
He pointed out how much McLaren's new wind tunnel helped them. "The new wind tunnel is definitely a big step forward, but the big step forward is, above all, from a logistical point-of-view. I always stress that last year's car, both for the upgrades in Austria and the upgrades in Singapore, they were designed and developed at the Toyota Wind Tunnel." Before their new wind tunnel, it was a lot harder for McLaren to test their parts. "But the thing is that to develop things at the Toyota Wind Tunnel, you have the part ready, and then it's tested two days after just because of the shipment, and now we have the part ready, and it's tested two hours after".
Stella continued. "So you just gain so much efficiency. But in reality, the chase of efficiency is not only thanks to the wind tunnel but is in the whole approach to aerodynamic development. It's not like because I have three times the wind tunnel time, I necessarily will develop the car three times faster."
"That's not the case", he noted. "And I think we have seen this year very well because there were developments taken trackside by some teams, and not necessarily they became something that was progressing. So not necessarily it's about quantity; we are very much investing in quality of the development."
McLaren and Stella were right to have already discussed the wind tunnel times and the restrictions they would face, as they ended up taking home the constructors title just two races later in Abu Dhabi.
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