F1 : McLaren fire up their 2021 Car ‘MCL35M’

McLaren Formula One Team becomes first team to fire up 2021 car ahead of new season. The UK based team switching back to their successful Engine partner Mercedes for 2021 season after spending brief spell with Honda and Renault.

MCL35M PROGRESS REPORT

Production Director Piers Thynne gives an exclusive insight into the development of the MCL35M and how the team are dealing with the unique challenges thrown up by COVID-19.

is the MCL35M build going to plan and are we on schedule for launch?

“If you work in the production team, you work hard every single month of the year but when you really earn your money is in January and February: it’s the toughest time of the year. We are on plan with a lot of things. There are some challenges in certain areas at the moment – but that’s F1. If you’re not encountering any problems, then you’re probably not being aggressive enough. If everything is easy and straightforward it tends to mean you’re giving performance away because you’re not pushing the boundaries.

The real challenge isn’t necessarily producing the launch car, it’s how you evolve from it by upgrading it as quickly as possible. The key is to not spend time and resource on anything that isn’t needed. If you make too many launch-spec parts, you’ve wasted capacity that could have been used to produce an upgrade to the latest specification.”

Is The MCL35M chassis homologated and was the process different from previous years due to stability in the regulations and covid-19?

“The homologation of the chassis is always a huge, huge milestone. It’s an uneasy and anxious time for lots of people in the team. It reminds me of when my wife gave birth to twins – the only difference is that we have to go through homologation every year! Although, we’re the only team that had to do it for this year’s car because every other team has carried its 2020 chassis over to 2021. We didn’t have this luxury due to the changes made to the chassis to accommodate the switch to the Mercedes power unit.

There were some challenges, as is the case every year, but good teamwork between manufacturing and design meant the chassis was homologated on time in December. The process didn’t really differ but, because of covid-19 restrictions, the FIA couldn’t physically be there to witness the crash test. Instead, we had to set up cameras and live links, so they could see all the instrumentation and closely follow every step of the process.”

MCL35M was akin to a new car, can you tell us what’s changed?

“Whereas every other team will carry over most of its car from last year into this year, our switch to the Mercedes power unit means that’s not the case for us. It’s driven a huge amount of change and, essentially, we’ve been building a new car. The number of new parts on the MCL35M is about the same as when we built the MCL35.

The back of the chassis and gearbox bell housing around the engine have changed significantly to adapt to the new power unit. Changing power unit greatly alters the architecture of the car and the way everything is packaged, so the entire cooling layout and all the pipework – be that for fluid or air – has changed, along with all electrical harnessing and control boxes.”

The MCL35M is the first McLaren F1 car to be produced entirely in a covid-safe environment, what does it take to build an F1 car in the time of covid-19?

“Covid-19 has had a massive influence on what we’ve done in the last six to eight months and how we’ve gone about doing it. We were early to the party when it came to defining covid-safe protocols and working practices because we had to put them in place during the first lockdown so we could manufacture ventilator parts and trolleys as part of the VentilatorChallengeUK project.

The amount of remote working we do has risen massively and that’s meant plenty of video calls. For those members of the production team that work from the McLaren Technology Centre we run split shifts, be that early/late or day/night, so that if we have a covid-19 outbreak the whole production team wouldn’t be forced out of action.”

P.S: Source of Piers Thynne Interview on MCL35M progress