Question marks over McLaren aerodynamics: 'We don't know how long it's been like that'

McLaren are clearly one of the best teams in the midfield this season, but not all drivers are getting on well with the car. According to Andrea Stella, this is due to the car's remarkable aerodynamics.

Daniel Ricciardo is not an underachieving driver, but you would almost start to think so when you compare his performance this season to that of teammate Lando Norris. The Australian is clearly struggling to adapt to the McLaren car and there doesn't seem to be much progress.

Andrea Stella, the executive director of racing at McLaren, is confident that Ricciardo will be able to handle the MCL35M soon, but has a few question marks about the aerodynamics himself. At the end of 2019 during testing in Abu Dhabi, Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz concluded that the McLaren is a challenging car, but that with their driving style they can thankfully handle it well. "We've been scratching our heads about how long this feature goes back in time," Stella told The Race .

An old problem at McLaren

Stella is convinced that the aerodynamics problems date back to a couple of seasons at the team. "The aerodynamics is where the forces come from and I think it goes back a few seasons before the current season. It's a number of characteristics on which the car provides the aerodynamic forces, which is not new for this year's car," explained McLaren's top executive.

"This year's car is a sister to last year's and there's certainly a close relationship with the previous years' cars. So it's to do with the methodology that fast cars can produce, but with some specific characteristics." Ricciardo will have to hope that he can quickly get to grips with these characteristics and compete at the front of the field like his teammate.