The Australian pilot Oscar Piastri (McLaren) won this Sunday the Miami Grand Prix (United States), the fourth victory of the season in six races, to strengthen his leadership in the world Cup, while the Spaniards Carlos Sainz (Williams) and Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) were ninth and fifteenth. Piastri taught McLaren’s superiority about Red Bull, with the four times world champion, Max Verstappen, a quarter behind the podium that completed the other ‘papaya’ Lando Norris and George Russell (Mercedes). After Baréin and Saudi Arabia, the Australian pointed his third GP followed on a Sunday marked by the disparate degradation of tires and by three virtual security cars.
The nerves for the superiority of the McLaren They increase as a Verstappen team that do not plan to miss a war against Woking headquarters.
A controversial image
In the previous Grand Prix of Miami, a gesture of Zak Brown, director of the McLaren team, did not go unnoticed by fans or for the rest of the teams. during Friday’s practice session, the cameras captured Brown on the boxes wall holding and drinking from a bottle with the label “tire water”. The gesture, clearly intentional, refers to the accusations of Red Bull to McLaren that began last season and that they continue today.
The image It soon run like gunpowder on social networks and Christian Horner himself, chief of Red Bull, replied humorously After seeing the images in a Sky Sports transmission: “We will send you a Red Bull if you need some energy”.
Illegal trick or efficiency?
But The controversy continues and the Austrian team does not plan to stop. According to Milton Keynes team, McLaren supposedly uses illegal techniques to regulate the temperature of their tires, which would have allowed better wear control and higher performance. Although the FIA conducted an investigation and did not find irregularities, Red Bull will not cease in its particular war.
McLaren has a faster car so far this year and this is due in large part that controls the temperature of the tires better than the competition. Red Bull is desperately trying to discover what the trick is.
Five of this year’s six great awards were for a McLaren pilot and success has a name. Almost perfect tire management. No other car in the field manages to heat the tires quickly and keep them so reliable. No matter the asphalt temperature, no matter the route,
This quality helps McLaren pilots in a quick classification turn even much more in the race. And all this in a single round, because the tires provide a constant grip from the first to the last round. Miami times has shown it. In the first sector, Max Verstappen takes a tenth of a second to the McLaren faster. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri lead in second and third place.
In the race The advantage is even more striking. Once McLaren’s pilots are ahead, they are unstoppable.
Thermal cameras
Since the beginning of the season, the rivals have wondered How McLaren manages to control the temperature of the tires so well, even in the most difficult conditions.
Red Bull is overturned to discover his secret and for this they have thrown hand of a powerful secret weapon: Thermal cameras.
Thermographic chambers are used to measure the temperature of brake cooling ducts during boxes, which can be used to indirectly control the temperature of the tires.
Special attention is paid to rear tires because they tend to overheat faster than strikers. And the thermal images, especially during hot races in Bahrain and Jeddah, showed that there are many blue points in the brake drums in McLaren, while there are many orange and red points in all other cars. Red Bull’s conclusion: “It is impossible that you can cool so well only with air.”
McLaren defends himself and ensures that MCL39’s capabilities They are a combination of high aerodynamic load, good equilibrium of the vehicle and innovations.
But their rivals suspect the use of materials that maintain circulating air within a certain temperature range or any other intelligent trick to cool the air.
Complaints has led FIA to review them in a conscientious way. Nothing seems illegal but suspicions in the paddock continue.
