Sainz handed new McLaren F1 chassis for Spain after cooling issue

McLaren has confirmed Carlos Sainz has been given a new Formula 1 chassis for his home race at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.

Sainz suffered an overheating issue at last weekend’s 70th Anniversary Grand Prix which forced McLaren to open up the cooling on his car and thus impacted the aerodynamic performance of it, costing him significant lap time compared to team-mate Lando Norris.

In a bid to solve this, McLaren has given Sainz a new chassis - a race earlier than originally planned.

Speaking on Friday, McLaren boss Andreas Seidl said: "We did different changes to the build of the car, simply to try to understand or exclude the temperature difference that we had in Silverstone.

"So we changed several components, including the monocoque as well, because the radiator ducts are connected to the monocoque.

"What we normally have is a rotation of monocoques during the year, as a standard, to simply distribute the mileage evenly and repair the monocoques, small little repairs, and it was planned to do anyway for next weekend in Spa.

"But with the temperature differences we had in Silverstone we put this change forward by one race, and in the end the radiator inlets are part of the monocoque, which could be one reason of many for the temperature difference. In the end we're trying to exclude as many items as possible.

"We need to see today in FP1 and FP2, if we could get to the bottom of the issue that we had. I think it's also important to understand that in terms of pure performance, that doesn't really make a big difference.

"But with the car in Silverstone running two-three degrees hotter than the other car, it simply triggered exactly the threshold where we had to open up the bodywork on Carlos's car, which then was a downside on drag, downside on top speed, and then also a deficit in lap time.

"And obviously we need to make sure that we get to the bottom of it, and avoid that in the future."

Sainz currently trails Norris by 23 points in the drivers’ championship and Seidl admits the Spaniard has been on the wrong side of ‘lady luck’ in 2020.

"If you look back at the first five races, especially on Carlos's side, there were a lot of things happening on the pit stop side, like this temperature topic, or the tyre blow-up in Silverstone, which were out of his control, and which caused him to lose a lot of points compared to Lando – despite Carlos putting in some great performances in qualifying, and also in the races," Seidl added.

"So it's our task to do better here. And hopefully we can start doing that from Barcelona at his home race onwards."