Why McLaren immediately removed its new front wing at F1 Canadian GP

McLaren opted to remove its brand new front wing for Formula 1 sprint qualifying at the Canadian Grand Prix.

The reigning constructors’ world champions arrived in Montreal with additional new parts for its MCL40 after debuting a major upgrade last time out at the Miami Grand Prix that helped it close the gap to current F1 benchmark Mercedes.

A new front wing design was part of the revised package and was tested by Lando Norris throughout Friday’s sole practice session at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Team-mate Oscar Piastri initially started FP1 with McLaren’s old-specification wing, before he too trialled the updated version.

But McLaren took it off the car altogether and reverted to the previous spec for sprint qualifying after it failed to produce the performance the team had been expecting.

Norris subsequently qualified third behind the Mercedes duo and directly ahead of Piastri.

“The front wing wasn’t quite delivering what we expected and we ultimately took the call to run the previous specification front wing, which gave the drivers more confidence and allowed them to unlock more performance,” McLaren’s technical director for engineering Neil Houldey said.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella explained the decision was taken to further evaluate the behaviour of the new front wing.

“I think it’s a fair margin considering they [Mercedes] had important upgrades here,” the Italian told Sky Sports F1.

"We also had some upgrades. We actually wanted to take a bit more time to see the behaviour of the front wing, so we raced with the previous front wing. So, looking at the fact that the car is pretty much the Miami car, it’s a gap that remains encouraging.

"Obviously we want to be in pole position, and today we are three tenths off so all things need to be put in perspective."

Norris felt McLaren’s upgrade was a step forward on the whole, but suggested the new front wing was “a bit more questionable”.

“Some things were maybe a bit more questionable and we probably need just more time to review things and look back,” the reigning world champion said.

“It's such a weird track, it's so low grip, you're kind of bouncing off kerbs and stuff, so you're not getting a true representation of everything and it's hard to back it up with what we have in the windtunnel and things like that.

“We need a bit more time with some bits and we will probably reintroduce some of them next weekend - or in Barcelona.

“But at the same time the rest of the car I think was clearly working well and I felt confident in Q3, especially on the soft, which is probably the first time this weekend that I felt that confidence!

“So a good step forward and we'll see what we can improve.”