A filmmaker with a soft spot for Ronnie Peterson, Gilles Villeneuve, Mika Hakkinen and above all, Tazio Nuvolari and Ayrton Senna, is also a diehard Formula One fan since the age of 4 (mid-90's). An avid researcher of the past of Grand Prix Racing since before it was even named F1, and with a thirst for knowledge of the ins and outs of the actuality of the sport, as well as for the technical aspects that define it, is a member of GPblog since 2023, where he has put his love of racing to good use.
After McLaren's dominant showing at the Australian Grand Prix, Red Bull Racing team principal, Christian Horner, stated the papaya team's tyre performance was strange and unusual, to which McLaren's Engineering Technical Director, Neil Houldey has now replied.
Following the race in Melbourne where McLaren were able to bring their tyres up to temperature immediatly at the restarts, regardless of the cold temperatures, and then also had the best tyre degradation levels, Horner stated to media present, including GPblog: "I think it's different to every body, yes. And what's quite strange is that they enjoy great warm-up, but also, [a] very low degradation. Usually one comes at the expense of the other."
In China, Houldey addressed the Red Bull boss' comments and stated, as quoted by Motorsport-total: "There's nothing we've done that could really hurt our warm-up of the tyres in qualifying," suggesting the development the MCL38 underwent to become the might MCL39 was directed, at least in terms of tyre management, to race trim performance.
'All about downforce'
"We've made changes to the whole car to get more performance everywhere," Houldey adds, and shortly after boils down the matter. "[It's] always about downforce," elaborating that: "Downforce helps the car and supports the tires. But at the same time, we are trying to make improvements everywhere."
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The McLaren top man later reveals that they have changed "little things" as part of the development process of the car that resulted in the MCL39. What those 'little things' are, he of course does not tell. If it wasn't clear by now, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull have a lot of work to do to catch up to the Woking-based team.
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