Oscar Piastri has revealed that McLaren will not race with the
‘Macarena’ rear wing this weekend at the Austrian Grand Prix. The
concept was first used by Ferrari during pre-season testing earlier
this year before Red Bull unveiled it in Miami. McLaren has also
been developing its own version of the system, which sees the upper
rear wing element rotate on its axis when entering Straight Mode.
The updated rear wing will be present in Spielberg this weekend on
Lando Norris’ car during practice — but the decision has already
been taken that it will be removed from the McLaren MCL40 ahead of
qualifying. “No, we won’t race it,” Piastri told media including
RacingNews365 . “I believe it’s on Lando’s car [during practice].
“It’s to test out, it’s not ready to race at the moment. Obviously,
we’ve seen some of the creative solutions, they don’t come without
their challenges, clearly. “It won’t be raced, but useful to try it
out.” McLaren has slipped back in the pecking order in recent
rounds, with Ferrari emerging as the biggest threat to leaders
Mercedes. Piastri is not expecting McLaren to be suddenly
challenging in Austria, as he highlighted the difficulties of
pulling ahead in a development race. “I think it will be tough,” he
said. “Ferrari obviously brought quite a few upgrades in Barcelona.
“Mercedes, as well, is still the benchmark, maybe not as far ahead
in those kind of conditions. “Things are changing so quickly.
Everyone is learning about their cars a lot every time we drive.
“Everyone’s changing their cars a lot. So it’s difficult to say,
“Maybe we can get close again, but again, we’re kind of relying at
the moment on the others getting it a bit wrong or having things go
our way rather than being the ones on the front foot and able to
set the pace.”
