McLaren reveal initial plan for their brand new wind tunnel

McLaren’s Andrea Stella has stated that the 2023 car will stay out of their new wind tunnel as they look ahead to next year.

McLaren are in the process of moving from borrowing Toyota’s wind tunnel in Cologne to their own inside the MTC having rented the Japanese car manufacturer’s since 2010.

The new wind tunnel is expected to streamline the process of developing the car but it will be a little while yet before McLaren fans see the benefit.

‘Tangled’ 2023 car makes progress difficult says McLaren

The new McLaren wind tunnel is in the final stages of preparation before it can be put online but the impact of the updated equipment will not be felt until 2024 at the earliest.

Team principal Stella revealed the 2023 car will not go into the wind tunnel as the team put one eye on next year’s campaign.

“What we are working on this year, it’s got a lot of things that are relevant for next year,” he told media including PlanetF1.com. “But this year’s model will not be put in the new wind tunnel. The new wind tunnel will only have next year’s model.”

With few regulation changes between 2023 and 2024, the teams have been granted the luxury of being able to develop for next year from a good base of understanding.

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For McLaren though, whose car has gone through the biggest transformation since the opening race in Bahrain, Stella says the structure of the MCL60 is so “tangled” that any progress they make on next year’s car cannot necessarily be applied to this year.

“On next year’s model, there’s not much you can develop that you can apply to this year’s car because things are very interlinked and tangled,” the former Ferrari man said. “So it’s very difficult to have a solution that works.

“Even if it’s a local solution that works on next year’s car and then you can apply to this year’s car you would certainly consider that as kind of a test site and let’s see if it works.

“But even to prepare a test site, it means that somebody will have to release it, throw it, produce it in a period in which we are completely flipped out on next year’s car so I see it as unlikely.”

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