Now, this is an interesting one. As Motorsport.com reports, McLaren has quietly brought a piece of their 2027 future straight into the present, bolting an early concept front wing onto their MCL40 at the Brazilian Grand Prix. And remarkably, it is already making the machine noticeably easier to handle.
The Woking-based outfit arrived at Interlagos needing answers after slipping behind Mercedes, Ferrari, and Red Bull over the preceding couple of months. To fight back, they unleashed a sweeping upgrade package featuring a brand-new rear wing, a beam wing, updated floor furniture, and that crucial 2027-spec front element.
Lando Norris put that machine on pole position at Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace, while team-mate Oscar Piastri found himself down in 12th. Heavy rain during the competitive sessions masked the true aerodynamic footprint of the new parts, but dry running earlier in the weekend gave the team vital data.
"Normally, the upgrades that we have taken trackside did not affect the driveability of the car, they were just aimed at increasing the load," McLaren team principal Andrea Stella explained. "But in this case, let me say that especially for the front wing, we were also aiming to start addressing the fact that the car needs to be just more drivable, not only more loaded. We are relatively happy that the wing behaves as expected. Based on the comments of the drivers and the data that we measure, we see that this seems to have made the driveability a little bit easier."
Stella was quick to temper expectations, noting there remains a distinct gap between making a car slightly more cooperative and delivering a genuinely easy machine to drive. Even so, using current weekends as a testing ground for next year's philosophy is a bold strategy, and these initial parts are behaving precisely as the simulator promised.
More pieces are waiting in the wings for the next round. Stella confirmed that new parts are coming in Vegas, designed to play nicely with the aerodynamic flow established by this new front wing, though he warned those additions will focus purely on aero efficiency rather than fundamentally altering the car's behaviour.
As for the grand prix itself, Stella kept his feet firmly on the ground regarding Sunday's prospects. While praising Norris as a rainmaster for his qualifying heroics, he confessed that Mercedes looked a step ahead in dry pace during practice, specifically highlighting the speed of [Kimi] Antonelli and Russell. It just goes to show that even with a smarter, more predictable beast underneath them, the fight at the front remains brutally unforgiving.
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