TECH ANALYSIS: McLaren targeted a more stable aerodynamic platform for the MCL39
Having just pulled the cover off their MCL39, McLaren appear to have introduced a series of updates to the predecessor of their 2025 F1 car in order to establish a more stable aerodynamic platform. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo dives into the details of the brand-new MCL39.
Having secured the constructors' championship for the first time in 25 years, McLaren are set to embark on the new season as one of the favourite teams. The Woking-based outfit ended the season with the quickest car, and the Andrea Stella-led organisation delivered every time when it mounted updates onto last year's car, the MCL38.
Last Thursday, the British outfit became the first team to reveal its car ahead of the upcoming 2025 F1 season, showing off its MCL39 at Silverstone Circuit as it took to track for the first time sporting a striking geometric camo design in shades of papaya and black.
With the 2025 F1 campaign set to become a transition year between the previous set of technical regulations that was introduced back in 2022 and the arrival of the all-new technical era, most of the teams are expected to carry over their previous cars from last season.
However, teams are expected to roll out a series of innovations and updates with their new car before they fully ditch the development of the current machines in order to shift their focus on to next year's brand-new cars.
The MCL39 is the first car that has been developed under the leadership of former Red Bull chief engineer Rob Marshall. The team noted that while they had been keen to improve the development of their car, they also introduced several modifications that could open up new development potential in the coming months.
Speaking to SkySports F1, team boss Andrea Stella insisted that the Woking-based outfit had been intent on raising the bar even more with its new car.
"In terms of improving the car, in addition to downforce and aerodynamic efficiency, in reality that's by far the most important target that you have, which is what we tried to achieve with this new car, which is innovative.
"It's a car in which we tried to raise the bar in many areas, including the fundamental layout, something that definitely we evaluated carefully, because the MCL38 was already a competitive car.
"We needed to be conscious, considerate as to how much we wanted to innovate, but ultimately actually we went for a relatively challenging approach in terms of how much innovation is in this car.
"This is predominantly to gain aerodynamic efficiency so to allow our colleagues in aerodynamics to have volumes to use for their geometries.
"At the same time, we still wanted to make some improvements in terms of interaction with the tyres and what you can do to improve especially what is your long-run pace.
"I think they fundamentally are the two areas. Obviously, there's some tuning on the suspension as well, in terms of the mechanical grip, but nowadays the suspensions pretty much tend to serve aerodynamics."
A series of changes to the predecessorOne of the most visually different solutions is the air intake and the roll hoop of the MCL39. The airbox has grown in width, and takes an elliptical curve.
The rear-view mirrors have also been further developed for the upcoming season. The mirror mount points sit now closer to the top wing of the sidepod inlet.
At the front of the car, McLaren taped up the air hole in the nose for the shakedown at Silverstone. The Woking-based outfit is expected to re-open the air hole come pre-season testing at Bahrain.
The sidepod inlet shape has also been heavily tweaked. The MCL38 featured a rather conventional horizontal opening, but that has now gone in favour of a P-shaped inlet. It is similar to what Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari used last year. The new inlet maintains the overbite aerodynamic tray that helps to direct the airflow towards the back of the car.
Behind the P-shaped cooling inlet, McLaren have also tweaked the back of the bodywork near the cooling canons. It looks much flatter than in 2024.
The suspension – pullrod at the front and pushrod at the rear - is the same as before. However, the team appears to have gone more radical in terms of the configuration that have been referred to as anti-dive solution at the front and anti-squat at the rear.
The team certainly wanted to establish a more stable aerodynamic platform which might negatively affect the peak downforce, but can provide the car with a platform that is not heavily influenced by ride height and therefore provides the drivers with a car that they can rely on in every phase of cornering.
