McLaren’s last two seasons have been a slow-motion turnaround. From 2022’s slow start to 2025’s championship contention. There are several reasons this happened, and most of them have nothing to do with the car.

Wind tunnel

The MTC opened a new full-scale wind tunnel in late 2023. Before that, McLaren had been using the Toyota Cologne facility on a contract basis — which meant limited tunnel time and travel costs eating budget. Owning their tunnel changed everything: more correlation runs, faster development cycle, better confidence in design decisions.