McLaren would have been well aware before the Formula 1 winter break even started that they needed to take another step forward ahead of the 2025 season.
While they may have secured their first constructors’ championship in 26 years last season, McLaren needed Lando Norris to win the final race of the season to deny their closest rivals, Ferrari.
Not only that, but Red Bull weren’t exactly miles off the pace with Max Verstappen winning his fourth drivers’ championship and only the underperformance of Sergio Perez denying them the chance to win the double.
With new regulations on the horizon in 2026, taking any serious risks with their car design that wouldn’t benefit them next year seemed out of the question.
However, when the MCL39 took to the track in Silverstone for the first time before pre-season testing, it was clear that Andrea Stella’s team weren’t afraid to think outside the box.
The Woking-based team have made some interesting design decisions and after three days of pre-season testing in Bahrain, everybody in the paddock thinks McLaren have the advantage.
Journalist and design expert Craig Scarborough was speaking on Peter Windsor’s YouTube channel after testing and analysing each car and believes he’s spotted something that McLaren’s rivals won’t be able to copy this season.
McLaren have made the only ‘true innovation’ on the grid for the 2025 F1 season
Scarborough was speaking about this year’s F1 cars and explained: “Everyone’s kind of converging on the same sort of solutions.
“In terms of the nose, the front suspension, the sidepod shapes, the floor shapes, even the diffuser shapes to an extent.
“Nothing really there we’ve seen turn up that we haven’t seen previously, everyone’s kind of trying everyone else’s ideas.
“The one true innovation that I saw here was actually from McLaren. Took me a couple of days to work it out, [and] I knew something was going on.
“If you don’t remember, last year McLaren actually changed the position of the steering rack.
READ MORE: Red Bull are ‘internally’ saying something seismic about Lando Norris’ 2025 McLaren F1 car
“So, the steering rack and the track rod arms that go out that go out of the suspension are actually quite an important part of the aerodynamics of the front of these cars because it creates downwash and feeds flow into the floor.
“Last year, McLaren moved the track rod arms from in front of the lower suspension to behind it and this actually meant that they could mount them slightly lower and cascade them with the wishbone and actually create lots of flow to go down into the floor.
“This is actually really quite clever and relatively easy to package within the current Formula 1 cars because the nose is so long on these cars.
“Funnily enough, Mercedes have copied that solution this year but McLaren have gone a step further.
“They’ve actually moved the steering rack ever so slightly forward, so rather than being behind the lower wishbone now, it’s now in between the two legs of the lower wishbone.”
Craig Scarborough explains why McLaren’s steering rack move can’t be copied by F1 rivals
Scarborough then provided more details after seeing the change in McLaren’s steering race and why their rivals won’t be able to copy them if it proves to be the difference this season.
He continued: “Rather than having the track rod go outwards like you would almost see on every race car ever, the track rods go diagonally forwards and actually go across the centre line of the front wheels and then steer the wheels from the front half of the upright.
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“This isn’t anything to do with steering geometry or the term anti-dive that everyone seems to apply to the suspension setup, it’s actually all to do with aerodynamics and moving these wishbone arms or these track rod arms to be leaning forward in plan view, you end up with a very long piece of surface area on which to create downwash to make the floor work better.
“Now, this is anything that anyone can now copy at this stage of the season, it just isn’t economically or practically viable to reconstruct your chassis.
“So, they’ve got a small aerodynamic advantage by making this change and it’ll be interesting to see if that is something that maybe does follow into the future regulations.”
McLaren benefitting from making one key signing from Red Bull
McLaren CEO Zak Brown has been quick to praise Stella and the impact he’s had since becoming team principal, but there are several experts behind the scenes who have played a crucial role in their success.
Peter Prodromou saw his contract extended in February after a successful spell as the team’s technical director and it’s clear he’s had a real influence since being placed in that role in March 2023.
The other name that deserves praise is Rob Marshall and several of the design decisions made on McLaren’s 2025 car can be put down to him.
Marshall was signed from Red Bull in May 2023 but didn’t start working for the team until January last year.
While he would have played a part in McLaren’s in-season update packages in 2024, this car is the first where he would have had a real influence on several key design decisions in his role as chief designer.
Marshall has been impressed by what he’s seen at McLaren, but the test of his and everybody else’s skill will be to sustain their success in 2026 when the regulations change.
