Is the MCL 60 a copy of Red Bull’s Formula 1 car?

In Monaco, the Red Bull truck of Sergio Perez lifted and showed the secret ground to the entire Formula One world. Two weeks later, McLaren F1 achieved success with a car said to be a version of the most successful car of the year.

The man behind the change?

Peter Prodromeo, former teammate of Adrian Newey at Red Bull.

Lando NorrisAnd McLaren F1, it went well with an updated car at the Austrian round of Formula 1. After a week, he and his colleague were impressed Oscar Biastri When the team got 30 points in Silverstone.

In one race, the team earned one more point than it did in the first ten races of the season.

Mercedes Lewis Hamilton The McLaren A Space Rocket and stated that it was very, very similar Red Bull car.

Copy?

– It is inevitable that this will happen. Why don’t you do that? When there is a car as powerful as ours, it makes sense for others to follow, says Christian Horner.

McLaren were very strong at Silverstone. It will be interesting to see how they perform on other types of tracks.

McLaren F1 – a copy of Red Bull?

McLaren claims that their update of the MCL 60 is not a copycat Red BullBut did the team benefit from the pictures taken of the Red Bull car floor in Monaco?

– By looking at an image, you cannot copy the geometry directly, explains Andrea Stella, Team Principal of McLaren.

– You don’t have all the data and you don’t get a better car speed just because you’re testing in a CFD or a wind tunnel. It often gets worse because your car is designed for what you have developed up to that point. All the booths have professional photographers who take as many photos of other cars as possible, it’s a way to find inspiration. But if you say ‘We have now seen the Red Bull floor and now we have the solution’, people will demand our performance to be invalidated. You have to incorporate your own ideas, otherwise it won’t work.

Instead, Andrea Stella points to an entirely different key to success. Peter Prodromou.

He began his career at McLaren in 1991, and in 2006 he and Adrian Newey moved to Red Bull and there they worked together for several successful years, including taking the team from newcomers to four consecutive World Cup titles with Sebastian Vettel. If you want to learn more about how Red Bull works, listen to Episode 58 of the F1 Podcast Pedal to the metal Where Christian Arnel, who then worked with the team, spoke about how he worked at the Formula One factory.

Tougher for McLaren during Formula 1 in Hungary?

By 2014, Prodromou was back at McLaren as Chief Engineer. When James Key left the team at the start of 2023, he took over as Technical Director, with responsibility for aerodynamics.

He leads the aerodynamics work and has done a great job. Not only did Peter set the aerodynamics direction, but he evaluated the entire aerodynamics team and helped us realign. He did it very well.

But how good are McLarenos? Can the team challenge for wins in other tracks as well? Despite the success at Silverstone, Lando Norris is cautious in his statements ahead of the next two races in Hungary and Belgium.

– We have a bad car, and when I say bad, I mean a really bad car, in the slow corners. It is very difficult to drive. I understand that people are excited about the result at Silverstone. But I’m sure we have a couple of courses ahead where people will ask: What did I do? How could a car get so bad, Norris says? Motorsports.

– We’re getting better at tire handling, at how to cool the tires, blah, blah, blah. But it is not a big problem. I think the track was right for us, let’s take care of the tires and we were able to handle it. that simple.

Briefly about F1

The UK-based F1 teams have met with the UK government to discuss the logistical challenges that Brexit has brought. For the Settlers, Brexit has been a nightmare, but they are now hoping they can get support from the government to streamline logistics when they drive in and out of the UK on their way to different races.

•••

Despite a poor qualifying at Silverstone, Red Bull continues to support Sergio Perez.

The season started very well, but it hasn’t been very good on Saturday lately. Hopefully he can be at a higher level on the field already in Budapest, says stable manager Christian Horner.

– As in all other sports, there is a lot on his mind and I think he just needs a good weekend to get himself up to speed again.

•••

Yet another reliability issue, Nico Hulkenberg is in the clear. He thinks the alarm bell is going off with Haas.

“We seem to have more problems with the car than other teams,” he says.

•••

There has been a lot of talk about Brad Pitt’s new F1 movie this weekend. You can read some pictures and more about the film, which was shot in an F1 environment and allows many of the current drivers to be fixed, by clicking on the link above.