McLaren: a Lotus-style double nose from Barcelona?

The season was presented as a transition year for McLaren. The team, awaiting the return of Honda for 2015, is still powered by Mercedes engines, which are currently the benchmark. Despite this, the new MP4-29 has been slow to confirm its promising performance from the first Grand Prix, and new developments are expected in Woking.

Eric Boullier, McLaren’s sporting director, remains confident in his team’s ability to respond: « McLaren is made up of brilliant individuals. They have won several races and fought for the championship. We just need to ensure that all these people work together, in the same direction, with strong leadership and guidance. That is what will help us regain the team’s victorious past. »

The team should therefore bring its share of modifications for the first European Grand Prix scheduled in Barcelona this weekend. According to the Italian media Omnicorse, McLaren’s technical teams are considering testing a new nose on the gray cars inspired by the asymmetric double nose of Lotus.

A solution that has also been considered by Williams, as recently confirmed by Pat Symonds, the technical director of the British team: « We have also looked at several interpretations of this double nose. But some of them simply did not fit our car. »

But the British engineer strongly suspects that the brain drain at Lotus is likely to influence the technical developments of other teams: Lotus has suffered a hemorrhage of employees, in all sectors, over the past few months. So I think all the teams had an idea of where they were going.

Moreover, Eric Boullier, former sporting director of Lotus until the end of last season, greatly contributed to the development of the E22. An additional asset for the introduction of a new aerodynamic nose model at McLaren.