Ferrari engineer dismisses 'big money' theory behind McLaren's recent strong pace

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Scuderia Ferrari downplays the idea that McLaren's recent surge in Formula 1 performance is solely due to its state-of-the-art wind tunnel. Since the introduction of a major upgrade at the 2023 Austrian Grand Prix, the MCL38 has transformed Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri into consistent race winners, propelling McLaren to a 41-point lead over Red Bull in the constructors’ standings ahead of the United States Grand Prix in Austin.

McLaren’s revamped wind tunnel at its Technology Centre has been one of the key assets driving their development. Meanwhile, Aston Martin has built a new tunnel from scratch, and Red Bull is set to upgrade its aging facility.

Despite the Maranello team not upgrading its own wind tunnel, performance engineer Jock Clear believes McLaren's dominance cannot be attributed solely to its new equipment.

“I honestly don’t know the answer to that, but I generally have a reasonably good big picture of what is going on, just because of my experience,” – explained English senior performance engineer Jock Clear when asked by the journalists regarding the new wind-tunnel of McLaren and the impact it may have had in terms of MCL38 gains – “That is a big, big picture, like looking at the fidelity of our wind-tunnel and how old the belts and mechanisms are and is that having an impact? Honestly, I have no idea and wouldn’t like to say that that is where McLaren’s performance is coming from, they’ve just done a good job this season.” – the Ferrari engineer continued.

“But actually, we’ve closed the gap to a large extent, there are still circuits which suit them, but certainly, you’ve seen over the past couple of races, we’ve closed the gap again. It is just the push and pull of everyone’s development, and if we see over a period of time there seems to be something coming back to our processes and with what we’re doing we just don’t seem able to keep up, then that is a bigger picture decision Fred [Vasseur, team principal] has to make, with some big money behind it.” – Jock Clear concluded.

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