A clever ‘trick’ from the McLaren team has been uncovered by an aerodynamics expert, which may give some clues as to how the Woking outfit are dominating the rest of the Formula 1 field.
McLaren have claimed five out of six grands prix victories so far in 2025, with drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris seemingly in a championship battle, with four-time world champion Max Verstappen lagging behind.
On top of this, McLaren also already lead the constructors’ championship by a healthy 105 points, having also won that title in 2024.
F1 is into its final year of regulations before an overhaul of the rules next season, when the competitive order may change somewhat dramatically, but for now McLaren appear to be the team to beat.
In 2024, Red Bull suggested that McLaren had been filling their tyres with water in order to keep them cool, a suggestion that was investigated by the FIA with no further action, and was recently ridiculed by Zak Brown at the Miami Grand Prix.
Instead, it appears that McLaren have a clever, legal, design quirk within their brake system which allows tyres to be heated to a certain temperature before ensuring they don’t overheat.
Pointed out by aerodynamics engineer Martin Buchan on his YouTube channel, a two-phase braking system sees the dissipated brake energy heat up the tyre, before a special insulating material changes its state into a liquid, allowing temperatures to remain the same even with increased external heat input.
According to Buchan, this change would be triggered by the outer drum of the braking system recognising when temperatures are becoming too hot, and therefore implementing a phase change, with a special phase-changing material inside the system making the state transition.
Sound confusing? Well, it was designed by the geniuses at McLaren, and Buchan suggested that even though Red Bull and the rest of the team’s rivals probably know this clever design trick by now, they would still struggle to make something similar that would help their current car designs.
McLaren design ingenuity helping Piastri and Norris
It has also been suggested that this clever two-phase system may be the reason why McLaren often opt to do demanding long-runs during FP3 on a Saturday, to make sure the design quirk is working as it should be.
McLaren have seen a stunning rise in the sport over the last two years, having been the slowest team on the grid at the 2023 season-opening Bahrain GP, but going on to win the 2024 championship.
Now, they are hoping that one of their talented young drivers Norris or Piastri can bring home their first drivers’ championship title since Lewis Hamilton won the 2008 world championship in his sophomore season in the sport.
