McLaren ended the 2017 season with one of the most complex front wing designs on the grid, with huge detail in the flaps, endplates and support struts (see images below). It was an eye-catching look – and clearly Ferrari were among those that took notice.
This year’s SF71H features very similar solutions, with the Scuderia even aping the slot in the main plane (highlighted in yellow) that McLaren introduced to F1 in the USA last season.
The complex arrangement of flaps on the new Ferrari’s front wing also bears a lot of similarities to the MCL32’s – a classic example of the familiar pattern in F1, that while there are often divergent designs in the first year of a new set of regulations, from the second season onwards solutions start to look very similar as the best designs are mimicked.