McLaren’s MCL39 has been the car everyone has wanted to beat in Formula 1 in 2025, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri scoring a combined 559 points midway through the season.
Red Bull dominated F1 throughout the 2023 and 2024 seasons with Max Verstappen, but trouble behind the scenes, coupled with stagnant car development, has left them behind this season.
The car concept that drove Verstappen to three titles in a row is now only fourth quickest, while McLaren are now the favourites to win both the Constructors’ and Drivers’ Championships.
There are many theories over why they have been so competitive out of the box in 2025, with Red Bull focusing on McLaren’s brake duct design.
But former F1 engineer Nick Wirth thinks it is down to a breakthrough McLaren made behind the scenes when speaking on The Race F1 Tech Show podcast.
Photo by Malcolm Griffiths – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty ImagesNick Wirth thinks McLaren made breakthrough with CFD on 2025 F1 car
All the teams are restricted in the number of hours in the wind tunnel and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations they can run, but there are also limitations to the technology.
According to Wirth, who was a main champion of CFD when he was at Virgin Racing, McLaren have likely made a breakthrough in their CFD simulations and produced an aerodynamically efficient car in a key area on track.
“The final thing I went on about, which is just the slam dunk for me, is the fact that you can’t do curved flow [in a wind tunnel],” said Wirth.
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all that that’s McLaren, that one of the teams, and particularly McLaren, who’s just dominating utterly at the moment, have made a breakthrough there, and everybody’s completely confused by the performance, and it’s obviously just sensational downforce.”
“People talk about tyre cooling and this, that, and the other, and there’s just nothing like another 15 points more downforce than your competitors, which just kinda sorts the problem out. They may have very good heat rejection, et cetera, et cetera.”
Former F1 engineer tells McLaren rivals to ‘look out’ in 2026
It’s no secret that McLaren have hired top talent to get themselves into this position, including key staff members such as Rob Marshall from Red Bull.
As part of their restructuring in 2023, the addition of Peter Prodromou to the aero team has also yielded better upgrades, which have helped increase their lap time.
Wirth thinks this form isn’t a one-off, and warns rivals that this will be carried into 2026 when F1 introduces new chassis and engine regulations.
“The car’s not unbeatable, but they’ve done an astonishing job. And if they figured that out, people better look out, because they’re going carry this on in 2026.
“They seem to have figured out something fundamental, and the others just are not able to match them, which is astonishing considering the period it’s happened over. And knowing Peter Prodromou’s interest in digital aerodynamics, it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s a part of it.”
McLaren extended the contract of Prodromou earlier this year in what they described as a “multi-year extension” for the Cypriot engineer.