McLaren pins Las Vegas double DSQ on “unexpected” porpoising, not a setup gamble
McLaren left the Strip empty‑handed after a bruising Las Vegas Grand Prix that looked, for a few hours at least, like a tidy night’s work: Lando Norris second on the road, Oscar Piastri fourth. Then the scrutineers pulled out the gauges, found too much plank wear, and both cars were disqualified.
Team principal Andrea Stella has now spelled out the root cause. It wasn’t an over‑eager setup or an aggressive ride‑height gamble. It was porpoising—back with a vengeance and, in McLaren’s case, far worse than anything their data predicted.
“The specific cause that led to the situation was the unexpected occurrence of extensive porpoising, inducing large vertical oscillations of the car,” Stella explained, adding that the phenomenon was “exacerbated by the conditions in which the car operated during the race.”
On paper, the infraction was clear. Under post‑race checks, Norris’ plank measured below the mandatory 9mm at two points—8.88mm front‑right and 8.93mm right‑rear—while Piastri’s car tripped three locations at 8.96mm front‑left, 8.74mm front‑right and 8.90mm right‑rear.
McLaren saw trouble coming early. Telemetry during the Grand Prix flagged unexpected bouncing, and the drivers were told to lift‑and‑coast to try to save the plank. It didn’t save the day. The cars still failed the scrutineering box.
Crucially, Stella insists this wasn’t the by‑product of McLaren chasing an edge it couldn’t sustain. The team had already raised the car versus practice, he said, building in margin for qualifying and the race. The problem was the margin got wiped out by those vertical hits at speed.
“Based on the data we had acquired in practice, we do not believe we took excessive risks in terms of ride height,” Stella said. “We also added a safety margin for qualifying and the race … However, the safety margin was negated by the unexpected onset of the large vertical oscillations, which caused the car to touch the ground.”
In a neat bit of irony, backing off didn’t always help. Slowing down should increase ground clearance and reduce the bottoming. In Vegas, at least in parts of the lap, it did the opposite. “Even a reduction in speed … was only effective in some parts of the track but in others was actually counterproductive,” Stella admitted.
If that sounds like a setup philosophy review is coming, Stella isn’t having it. He called the Las Vegas outcome “an anomaly in the behaviour of the car, rather than … an excessive or unreasonable chase of performance.” He pointed to the team’s recent body of work—two straight Constructors’ titles and both drivers at the sharp end of the championship with two races left—as validation of the approach. The message: stay the course, learn the lesson.
That lesson is largely about operating windows and track specificity. Las Vegas is a quirky challenge for today’s ground‑effect cars: extreme top speeds, long straights into big stops, a street surface that evolves aggressively, and conditions that swing as the night cools. It’s exactly the kind of place where porpoising can sneak back in if the car’s aero‑mechanical sweet spot shifts under race conditions.
“The conditions we experienced … are very specific to the operating window of the car in Vegas and the circuit characteristics,” Stella said. He also underlined McLaren’s confidence that its “well‑established and consolidated” setup process will put them on a better footing this weekend at Lusail.
That’s the immediate pressure point. Qatar has its own demands—high‑speed, high‑load corners and, depending on timing, tough track temps—but it’s a conventional circuit with more predictable grip build‑up than a newly resurfaced city sprint down the Strip. McLaren’s engineers have already pored over Vegas data to tighten their models around porpoising onset and mitigation. Expect them to arrive in Lusail with a more conservative plank‑protection envelope and a sharper eye on vertical accelerations across the lap.
There’s also the human factor. Norris and Piastri drove the race that was in front of them in Vegas and, once the team saw the problem, executed the instructions. Being pinged on a technicality after doing the main bit right is a gut punch, but this team has worn worse and rebounded. The bigger risk would’ve been a panicked philosophical pivot; that’s not happening.
So box away the “harakiri” headlines. This wasn’t McLaren getting greedy; it was the ugly side of ground‑effect dynamics meeting a finicky street circuit at precisely the wrong moment. They’ve got the data, they’ve got the process, and they’ve still got everything to play for as the paddock heads to Qatar.
