Why McLaren abandoned its experimental rear wing trial at the F1 Austrian GP

McLaren ultimately shelved plans to test its experimental rear wing during Friday’s Formula 1 practice at the Austrian Grand Prix. 

The reigning world champion squad arrived in Austria with its own version of the so-called ‘upside-down’ or ‘Macarena’ rear wing design and had the intention of trialling it on Lando Norris’s car on Friday at the Red Bull Ring. 

However, the item, which takes inspiration from designs introduced first by Ferrari and then Red Bull, never ran. It is not expected to make an appearance on McLaren’s MCL40 during the remainder of the weekend at the Austrian Grand Prix.

“Unfortunately, we were unable to run the experimental wing we brought to the track,” McLaren’s technical director of engineering Neil Houldey said after second practice on Friday. 

“The team at the factory worked tirelessly to get it here, but during final sign-off tests in the garage, it didn't perform as expected, and we weren't comfortable running it. 

“The correct decision was to focus our track time on optimising the current package for this weekend. It’s disappointing, but we will conduct more work on the component before bringing it to a future event.”

It is understood that McLaren will not deploy its Ferrari-like rear wing design until after the British Grand Prix, which takes place at Silverstone next weekend. 

"We've done a lot of work in the last few weeks at the factory, just trying to get something to this event, because we knew this event would be a good opportunity to test the wing," Houldey explained. 

"A lot of work in the lab that happened over the last few days, and we knew that when it came here we still had a little bit of sign-off work to do. 

"When we fitted it up and did that final sign-off, we weren't comfortable enough to take it into the first session. So, we're sending it back, and we've got a little bit more work to do before we'll take it back out to the track again.

"I don't want to go into technical detail on it, but we realised once we actuated it that actually it wasn't doing what we needed it to, and therefore it was best not to spend time trying to make it work in that first session. 

“It was important for us to try and get running on the car that we wanted to run for the rest of the weekend, because the intention was only to run it for a very, very short period of time anyway.

"Actually, we were best to focus on the car and this weekend rather than development work, and we'll bring that wing back when we've learnt a little bit more and are comfortable with the design.”

McLaren’s rear wing innovation has been dubbed as the “McMacarena”.