03/02/2022
NEWS STORY
McLaren is planning an aggressive approach to its upgrades this season as the demands of the budget-cap finally kick in.
Just over a week from now, McLaren will be the third team to reveal its 2022 contender, and though it is customary for the cars to look decidedly different at the season opener, the Woking outfit promises an aggressive approach to its upgrades this year.
However, the demands of the budget cap, which this season sees the limit reduced from $145m to $140m, are such that the team must be far more selective in its development programme.
"You must tune the levers which will deliver an outcome," admits Piers Thynne, the team's operations director. "Some of that is ensuring operationally and technically we understand what things cost.
"The other lever we can pull is making production as lean is it can be," he adds. "We're manufacturing fewer spare parts. That, again, is a cultural shift, but it will allow greater flexibility to consider upgrades.
"It's a difficult trade to make," he admits, "but we will have smaller quantities of parts available for the '36 than we had for the '35M, to have room in the budget to deliver more performance.
"We're not going to ever have too few parts to run the cars," he makes clear, "we'll always protect that, but where in the past we would have made five or six parts, we're dropping to five; where it was four or five, we're dropping to four.
"Where there are multiple set-up options of a part to fit, we're considering rationing how those choices are made, collaborating with the race engineers to make sure we're providing the choices they will want to use, rather than the choices they might want to use, because every pound counts and we've got to make sure we're spending wisely."
Looking ahead to the season opener, he adds: "We know performance at race one is critical, and we'll be delivering an upgrade package to that event, but we expect much more to follow.
"One of the reasons we're being lean on stock is that we know we want to evolve the car. There are no prizes for having six floors and six front wings at the first race.
"So we'll be taking some subtly different approaches this year to make sure production capacity is available and can respond to aerodynamic evolution. That will be key to success this year."