McLaren's highly anticipated trial of its innovative rotating rear wing has been put on hold after the team abandoned plans to run the experimental component during Friday practice at the Austrian Grand Prix.
The reigning constructors' champion had intended to evaluate its version of the so-called 'Macarena' rear wing on Lando Norris' MCL40 at the Red Bull Ring, with the design drawing inspiration from concepts first introduced by Ferrari before Red Bull adopted a similar solution.
Instead, the new part never made it onto the circuit after the team encountered an issue during its final pre-session checks.
The decision means McLaren will continue the Austrian weekend with its existing aerodynamic package, while the experimental wing returns to the factory for further refinement. The component is now expected to remain on the sidelines until after next weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Final checks force McLaren rethink
Technical director of engineering Neil Houldey explained that the project was halted only after the team completed its last round of validation work in the garage.
"Unfortunately, we were unable to run the experimental wing we brought to the track," Houldey said after Friday's second practice session.
"The team at the factory worked tirelessly to get it here, but during final sign-off tests in the garage, it didn't perform as expected, and we weren't comfortable running it.
"The correct decision was to focus our track time on optimising the current package for this weekend. It's disappointing, but we will conduct more work on the component before bringing it to a future event."
The aborted test was particularly frustrating given the amount of preparation that had gone into bringing the revised rear wing to Spielberg.
"We've done a lot of work in the last few weeks at the factory, just trying to get something to this event, because we knew this event would be a good opportunity to test the wing," Houldey explained.
"A lot of work in the lab that happened over the last few days, and we knew that when it came here we still had a little bit of sign-off work to do.
"When we fitted it up and did that final sign-off, we weren't comfortable enough to take it into the first session. So, we're sending it back, and we've got a little bit more work to do before we'll take it back out to the track again."
Development paused in favour of race weekend
Although McLaren has not disclosed the precise technical issue, Houldey revealed that the team quickly concluded it would be more productive to concentrate on preparing for qualifying and the race rather than troubleshooting an experimental component at the track.
"I don't want to go into technical detail on it, but we realised once we actuated it that actually it wasn't doing what we needed it to, and therefore it was best not to spend time trying to make it work in that first session.
Read also: Norris wishes McLaren had new rear wing ‘three months ago’"It was important for us to try and get running on the car that we wanted to run for the rest of the weekend, because the intention was only to run it for a very, very short period of time anyway.**
"Actually, we were best to focus on the car and this weekend rather than development work, and we'll bring that wing back when we've learnt a little bit more and are comfortable with the design."
While the delay postpones McLaren's evaluation of a concept that has already attracted attention elsewhere on the grid, the team has made clear it would rather arrive at a future race with a fully validated package than compromise valuable practice time trying to resolve issues at the circuit.
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