The Briefing: 2026 Italian Grand Prix – Powered by Google Cloud

Welcome to The Briefing, where we’ll be answering the key on-track questions ahead of the Italian Grand Prix.

Each week, powered by Google Cloud, one of our trackside experts will join us to explain all of the weekend’s biggest talking points. This week, ahead of FP1, we spoke with Technical Director – Applied Engineering, Neil Houldey.

From the tight, twisting, high-downforce turns of Budapest and Zandvoort to Monza’s free-flowing, high-speed straights, the Italian Grand Prix presents a very different challenge.

To adapt to Monza’s low-drag demands, the team have brought several aerodynamic upgrades, including track-specific parts such as the H-wing, which you’ll be hearing plenty about over the next few days.

With Neil’s help, we’ll explain exactly why Monza differs from Zandvoort and Budapest, how our recent upgrades will perform around the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, and what you can expect from the H-wing.

Let’s talk about the H-wing, expected to make its race debut here at Monza. How does our new revolving rear wing work?

Our version of this drops at the leading edge and rotates 180°. In that sense, it’s very similar to the Red Bull solution, as opposed to the Ferrari solution which rotates the other way – up and over. We’ve retained our central actuator mechanism, so it still actuates off the centre of the wing, rather than the end plates.

We're nicely inside the 0.4-second legality time limit and have tested extensively. It’s been on track earlier this season, and we’ve done the full suite of prove-out testing in the lab. Today we’ll look to run it during FP1 and FP2 for final sign-off, but based on everything we’ve seen so far, we’re confident we’ll be able to race it at this event.

Is this the same as the version tested before the summer break?

It’s a developed spec of rear wing. The system is fitted to our low-drag wing that ran in Spa. Going forward, we’ll review the data from running it during practice and work from there to explore where else we can introduce additional variants.

Does the mechanism carry a weight penalty?

Yes – but a minor one, somewhere in the low hundreds of grams. The actuator mechanism has to be larger to cope with the loads, while the flap itself needs to be a little more robust, so we’ve added a small amount of metallic mass, and a little bit of composite mass – but the performance gain far outweighs the mass penalty.

Does anything else on the car need to change to accommodate this?

No, it’s an independent upgrade that isn’t reliant on other components. This aside we’ve got a small floor update, and some slightly lower-drag pieces of bodywork at the back of the car around the rear impact structure. We’ve also got some brake duct winglets to test, that have ran before.

Taking about Monza specifically, what do we want to learn across practice?

Usually, we’d be talking about suspension and aero, but it’s really PU set-up that has the team’s full attention: how we maximise our recharge and deployment to put it in the right place for optimum lap-time.

We’re unclear about how the race is going to turn-out in terms of what’s been called ‘yo-yo racing’. It’s one of the most noteworthy circuits for overtaking in that regard, and figuring out how to overtake and stay ahead is going to be interesting. It’s something we'll work on in practice to give ourselves a good idea of how to go racing.

Beyond this, the usual Monza stuff. We need good ride performance over the kerbs in the chicane – but need to balance that against the demands in the medium-high speed corners at the Lesmos and Parabolica. It’s a question of finding the right compromise for ride-height to have the most aero performance and the best handling car. Traction is important too. And though we have SM mode to help, we’ll also want to look at our baseline drag-level.

Finally, we come to Italy off the back of two victories – but both at ‘McLaren-friendly’ circuits, with lots of high-downforce. Monza isn’t that sort of track – is there cause for optimism or is this a weekend to consolidate?

It's not an obvious circuit for us, but we will work to be there or thereabouts with other leading teams looking strong. We’ve got a good PU, good ICE power, good energy recovery, an efficient electrical system, and that’s definitely a good thing here and should provide an advantage down the straights. On top of that, the Lesmo bends and Parabolica will suit the MCL40 too. Key for us, is going to be how well we can do through the lower speed sections around the first and second chicanes.

What’s really interesting is that this season is moving back and forth, and where we’ll sit relative to other teams this weekend depends a little on what they bring. It’s tight this year and at every event, the competitive picture changes slightly. I’m looking forward to seeing where we are – hopefully very near the front and able to carry on in` a way similar to the last couple of events… but practice will give us a clearer picture.