F1 2023: McLaren reveal the pre-season rule change that screwed up Oscar Piastri’s debut

Oscar Piastri’s F1 debut was the stuff of nightmares. Now, McLaren has revealed exactly what is wrong with their car with one of their drivers even saying the future is grim.

McLaren's Australian driver Oscar Piastri

McLaren’s technical chief has revealed a pre-season rule change is the root cause of the team’s struggles after Oscar Piastri endured a hellish F1 debut.

The Melburnian’s first race ended after just 14 laps in Bahrain due to mechanical problems while his teammate Lando Norris only managed 17th.

A poor start to the season came as little surprise given McLaren admitted at their own launch the car was not in the shape they had hoped, but their lack of pace is a real cause for concern.

In February, team principal Andrea Stella was already talking about the upgrades they planned to bring in for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in round four – hardly a ringing endorsement of confidence in one’s machine.

Now it seems that because of a change brought in late in 2022, McLaren had not met its development targets and will likely be on the back foot for much of the season.

With McLaren patiently waiting until Baku to upgrade their package, it means that Australia’s F1 rookie will be forced to make his hometown debut at Albert Park in Melbourne in April with a car package that will give him very little chance of pushing towards the front of the grid, if indeed finishing at all.

McLaren's Australian driver Oscar Piastri in the paddock

“Where this happened actually is when we took the 15mm floor step,” McLaren’s technical director, James Key said.

“That sounds very small, but these floors are huge and incredibly sensitive. Look at how much downforce it generates, massive. So when we did it on our car, it actually gave us a much bigger loss than anticipated. It seems to have affected different teams in different ways.

“And to a certain extent, it seems to be related to the floor edge geometry that you’re running at the time.

“Last year, there were two camps beginning to develop, one which we were in, and one which probably the majority of teams were in. And when we took that [15mm] step, it was a really big knock for us.

“The trying to recover with what we knew at the time, and this was probably September time, we were thinking this is not working, we’ve actually got to change direction entirely with these geometries.

“Which is a big change, because they’re very big projects, and very complex projects.

“So I think the timing of the reg, and the fact that we took a particularly large hit, and then that it clearly wasn’t going to come back easily, meant that we had to change direction quite late.”

While optimistic that come Baku things will start to look up, Norris said they would need a lot more than what’s coming if they are to continue to reclaim 4th spot in the constructors from Alpine.

“We’re in a reasonable position to start the season but we have similar limitations to what we did last year. But I think this year we have a clearer plan on how to tackle those changes than what we did last year,” he said.

“I think it’s a mixture of two things. One is the general balance and two is overall downforce.

“Overall downforce kind of fixes 90% of the problems but to become that final step, there is other things on top of it.”

“I think we have a lot of what we need. Of course, we still know that the wind tunnel is coming, the simulator is coming, two things that will definitely help us take another step forward, but we need to do more with what we have now already.

“What we’re having in Baku should be what we’re starting the season with. If you want to be a top team, it’s where we should’ve started the season with those kinds of parts which are coming.”

Originally published as F1 2023: McLaren reveal the pre-season rule change that screwed up Oscar Piastri’s debut