3 — McLaren: Putting the pedal to the (new) floor
Besides its shorter nose, McLaren also had a new floor on its MP4-30 at Spielberg, which features hitherto unseen slots right before the rear tyres. Instead of having one conventional L-shaped dent, four edges have been pierced into the floor: two longitudinal and parallel slots plus a couple of long, L-shaped, albeit still parallel openings that are closer to the wheels. Looking at the raw carbon fibre aspect of the updated part, one can imagine that the team had to meet very tight deadlines in order to produce its new floor.
Such design is unique and even more sophisticated than the similar concept sampled by Toro Rosso at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya (see below). The rationale behind it is to fend off tyre squirt, i.e to keep the dirty wake coming off the rotating rear wheels away from the car’s diffuser.
By channeling the high-pressure airflow coming from above the floor through its new slots, the McLaren engineers aim to re-energise the flow on the diffuser’s edges, which in turn will help divert the air turbulence produced by the rotation of the wheels.
