The Unseen Battle: Porpoising and Plank Wear in Las Vegas

McLaren acknowledged early in the Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend that their cars were exhibiting significant porpoising, a phenomenon where aerodynamic forces cause the car to bounce rapidly at high speeds. While F1 teams have grappled with porpoising since the reintroduction of ground effect aerodynamics, the specific characteristics of the Las Vegas Street Circuit seemingly exacerbated the issue for McLaren.

This relentless bouncing directly contributed to accelerated wear of the car’s plank assemblies. The plank, a mandatory wooden skid block fitted to the underside of F1 cars, serves as a crucial component for aerodynamic performance and compliance with regulations. Its thickness is strictly monitored, and excessive wear—beyond a stipulated tolerance—results in disqualification, as it indicates the car ran too low to the ground for too long. For Norris and Piastri, this unexpected plank damage ultimately led to their post-race disqualifications, wiping out their hard-earned results.

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Team Principal Andrea Stella elaborated on the situation, confirming McLaren’s proactive attempts to mitigate the damage during the race itself. “We realised relatively soon that this level of porpoising was causing a high level of skid wear energy,” Stella stated, “and this is the reason why both drivers started to take remedial actions in various parts of the circuit.” These actions, presumably involving adjusting driving lines or lifting off the throttle, were desperate measures to manage the car’s ride height and protect the plank from further abrasion.

The Enigma of Unspoken Problems: What the Team Radio Didn’t Say

One of the most intriguing aspects of McLaren’s Las Vegas predicament was the apparent absence of direct communication regarding plank wear on the drivers’ onboard radio feeds. Observers carefully monitoring Norris and Piastri’s interactions with their race engineers would have heard no explicit mention of concerns over the plank, floor, or skid blocks. This raises a pertinent question: why the silence?

While it’s conceivable that such messages were exchanged but not broadcast, this scenario is highly improbable given the typical patterns of Formula One Management (FOM) radio censorship. FOM possesses the capability to silently filter drivers’ radio messages without the tell-tale ‘beep’ that signifies a censored word. However, this is usually reserved for specific, sensitive situations, such as immediately following a crash where a driver’s condition might be compromised, or when a driver is agitated and likely to use inappropriate language. Neither of these circumstances applied to McLaren’s situation in Las Vegas, making overt censorship of routine technical communication highly unlikely.

Andrea Stella’s subsequent comments, however, confirmed that the team’s fears regarding plank wear were very real and directly informed the instructions given to the drivers. The lack of direct radio warnings about the plank suggests a deliberate strategy by McLaren, possibly to avoid revealing critical information to rival teams or to prevent any pre-emptive protests that could arise from explicit mentions of a regulation-sensitive issue.

“The porpoising condition that the car developed in the race was also a difficult one to mitigate,” Stella explained, highlighting the unique challenges. He noted that even a seemingly logical action like reducing speed—which should, in theory, increase ground clearance—was “only effective in some parts of the track but in others was actually counterproductive.” This paradoxical effect further complicated McLaren’s race management strategy, forcing drivers into a nuanced and often confusing dance with the circuit’s characteristics.

Navigating the “Counterproductive” Quandary and Inconsistent Instructions

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As the full transcript of their messages reveals, both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were indeed instructed to adjust their speed at various points around the lap. Andrea Stella confirmed that the team became aware of the exacerbated bouncing condition relatively early in the race. By as early as lap six, Norris was advised to reduce his speed more aggressively in turns six and eleven. These are both left-hand corners, implying that increased plank wear was likely occurring on the right-hand side of the car, aligning with Norris’s eventual disqualification due to wear at the rear right of his plank assembly, and the predominant damage seen on Piastri’s car.

The “counterproductive” effect Stella referred to was vividly illustrated by Norris on lap 43. He reported that backing off in turn 10, an attempt to alleviate the problem, actually created a “worse” sensation or feeling in the car. This suggests that the interplay of the car’s aerodynamics, the unique bumps and undulations of the Las Vegas track, and the chosen driving lines created a complex and unpredictable challenge for the McLaren engineers and drivers.

Furthermore, the instructions relayed to Norris and Piastri were not always consistent. This discrepancy is understandable, given the very different race scenarios each driver faced. Norris often found himself in clear air, allowing for a more consistent aerodynamic platform. Piastri, on the other hand, spent a significant amount of time battling in traffic, which would have subjected his car to turbulent air and variable downforce levels, further influencing how porpoising and plank wear manifested.

Strategic Silence: Why F1 Teams Keep Secrets on the Airwaves

It’s common practice in Formula 1 for teams to issue instructions to their drivers without explicitly stating the underlying reason. This applies to various scenarios beyond just plank wear, such as managing fuel consumption, controlling tyre temperatures, avoiding graining, or cooling vital car components. There are several strategic reasons for this deliberate ambiguity:

• Information Control: Teams are fiercely competitive and constantly monitor their rivals’ radio communications. Revealing specific technical problems or strategic intentions could give opponents a significant advantage, allowing them to adjust their own race plans or engineering focus.
• Preventing Protests: Explicitly discussing potential rule infringements on public radio could invite post-race protests from rival teams. By keeping communications vague, teams can attempt to manage issues internally without drawing undue attention.
• Driver Focus: Sometimes, providing too much technical detail to a driver in the heat of battle can be counterproductive. Concise instructions allow the driver to focus on execution rather than getting bogged down in complex explanations.

A prime example of this is Ferrari’s consistent instruction to their drivers to “lift-and-coast” during races, often for fuel saving. While the reason is widely understood within F1 circles, the team typically doesn’t elaborate on the airwaves. This mirrors McLaren’s situation: rather than saying “your plank is wearing, reduce speed,” they opted for the more general instruction to “lift” or “reduce speed” in specific corners, allowing the drivers to interpret the underlying objective without explicitly stating a problem with a regulation-sensitive part of the car.

The Unquantifiable Challenge: Tracking Plank Wear in Real-Time

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Another critical factor contributing to McLaren’s communication strategy, or lack thereof, regarding plank wear is the inherent difficulty in monitoring it in real-time. Unlike fuel consumption, for which teams have highly accurate sensors and sophisticated telemetry systems, there is no direct sensor that can measure the exact thickness of a plank as it wears down during a race. Engineers can infer potential issues from ride height data, accelerometer readings (indicating bouncing), and correlation with pre-race simulations, but precise, real-time measurements of plank degradation remain elusive.

This contrasts sharply with other performance parameters. If a team is concerned about fuel consumption, they can track it precisely and instruct the driver to save a specific amount per lap. For tyre temperatures, sensors provide immediate feedback. For plank wear, however, it’s a much more complex and inferential process, making it difficult for engineers to provide definitive updates or for drivers to understand the precise severity of the situation. This operational challenge means that by the time an issue becomes clear from indirect data, it might already be too late to fully prevent a breach of regulations.

When Did McLaren Realize the Severity? An Unanswered Question

Despite Andrea Stella’s explanations, a key question lingers: exactly when did McLaren understand the full severity of their plank wear problem? Was it spotted in the data collected during the reconnaissance laps before the race even began, prompting pre-emptive warnings to the drivers? Stella’s public statements do not explicitly rule out this possibility. If the team had identified the risk early, it could explain why direct references to the plank were absent from the race radio; the drivers might have already been briefed on the general need to manage the car’s ride height without needing constant reminders about the specific component at risk.

Alternatively, the seriousness of the situation may have only become clear as the race progressed and data accumulated, perhaps when critical thresholds were already being approached or breached. This would place McLaren in a reactive rather than proactive position, scrambling to mitigate a problem that had already spiraled beyond easy control. The “counterproductive” feedback from Norris further suggests a dynamic and evolving challenge that wasn’t fully understood or predictable from the outset. Understanding this timeline is crucial for assessing McLaren’s response and the broader implications for F1 technical management on new and challenging circuits.

Ultimately, McLaren’s Las Vegas disqualification serves as a stark reminder of the razor-thin margins in Formula 1, where complex aerodynamic phenomena, precise regulatory compliance, and the art of strategic communication converge. The silent struggle with porpoising and plank wear highlights the unseen battles fought by teams and drivers, underscoring the relentless technical and strategic demands of the sport.

Transcript: McLaren’s Messages to Norris and Piastri

The following transcript provides a detailed look at the radio communications between McLaren drivers Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, and their respective race engineers, Joseph and Stallard, during the 2025 Las Vegas Grand Prix. While not explicitly mentioning plank wear, these messages reveal the subtle instructions given to the drivers to manage their cars and preserve performance, likely in response to the unseen challenges.

• Start – lap 5
• Laps 6-10
• Laps 11-15
• Laps 16-20
• Laps 21-25
• Laps 26-30
• Laps 31-35
• Laps 36-40
• Laps 41-45
• Laps 46 – Finish

Start – lap 5

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Laps 6-10

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Laps 11-15

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Laps 16-20

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Laps 21-25

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Laps 26-30

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Laps 31-35

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Laps 36-40

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Laps 41-45

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Laps 46 – Finish

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