McLaren Technical Director of Engineering Neil Houldey has explained how it avoided its rivals’ development hurdles throughout the 2024 Formula 1 campaign.
McLaren won its first Constructors’ title since 1998 last year and largely had the best overall package following a seismic floor upgrade at Round 6 in Miami.
Red Bull started 2024 as the best team, but developed itself into a spiralling saga of balance issues as the season wore on.
Ferrari, meanwhile, finished just 14 points behind McLaren in the final standings but had to revert and restart its development after a Spanish Grand Prix upgrade induced porpoising on the SF-24.
Finally, Mercedes spent the entire season head-scratching thanks to the narrow performance window of the W15.
Speaking to Motorsport.com, Houldey detailed how McLaren adopted a studious approach to upgrades throughout 2024.
“I can’t answer for any other team and I’m sure there are many different reasons why different teams have been taking parts off, putting parts back on again,” Houldey said.
“The Miami floor was relatively easy, actually. It had so much performance, it was going to be better in every part of the corner, and there was no concern.
“It may have caused a little bit more bouncing, it might not, but these were going to be small effects with total lap time.
“The harder one for us was the late season package in Austin where actually the performance wasn’t as high, but we’d been so diligent in ensuring that in every trajectory, every part of the corner, it was still better, that we were still confident that it was going to go onto the car and offer us some lap time.
“And I think that’s in part because of the way that we have good toolsets, that the CFD and the wind tunnel all give very similar results.”
Working to deadlines key to development approach
Houldey explained the important facet to McLaren’s approach was having manageable deadlines.
By sticking to manageable targets, McLaren personnel weren’t rushed to produce parts and could be absolutely certain the job was done correctly before delivery to the track.
“It’s not about ‘you must hit this deadline for this race’,” said Houldey.
“There’s an internal pressure to create performance, of course, but not a real deadline.
“That means people can develop it without the concern that what they’re going to end up with on the car might not be as expected.
“We weren’t compromising in any area of the performance of that [Miami] floor when we put it on.
“If you do something potentially a little bit too early, because it’s what you have to do to get something on the car, you might not be getting the results that you quite expected.
“Fortunately for us, from Miami onwards, we were still getting the results.
“There definitely wasn’t any sort of panic in the team that we had to get an upgrade out.
“It was ‘we’ll get the upgrade out when we’re ready to get the upgrade out’, and we were confident in it delivering on the circuit.
“Because, as you can imagine, you do it any earlier, and you find yourself in a situation where you put it on, you take it off, you put it on, you take it off, you lose so much more than just keeping the old parts on the car from the start.”
McLaren will continue studious upgrade approach in 2025
McLaren’s studious approach to upgrades paid dividends in 2024 and it will continue to adopt a similar model this year.
It’s part of a philosophy that Houldey states is about “doing the right things for the right reason,” to avoid falling into the trap of backwards development.
“We saw what other teams were doing and learned a little bit from that, but actually it’s more the philosophy of McLaren in ensuring that we’re doing the right things for the right reason, putting our performance on the car at the right time,” Houldey explained.
“I’d like to think we’d have done exactly the same thing anyway, but seeing other teams struggle does make you consider that it’s not always easy.”
Houldey acknowledges that continuing with this approach is imperative to ensure it doesn’t hit any development hurdles in 2025.
“We know that we need to continue to recognise that,” he said.
“It’s not like McLaren has done two upgrades and hasn’t taken any off that that means that in the future, we’re not going to be in that same situation.
“So, we’re very aware that we’ve still got a lot to learn, and producing any upgrades for 2025 is going to be a very, very similar situation.
“We need to make sure that they’re always positive and there isn’t the risk of a downgrade.”
READ MORE – McLaren ‘working a lot’ to address ‘inherent limitations’ prevalent on 2024 F1 car
