Mark Hughes: McLaren 'conspiracy' is more likely a push for every microsecond

F1
Mark Hughes
November 26, 2025

McLaren's disqualification from the Las Vegas Grand Prix led to speculation about a conspiracy to bring Max Verstappen back into the title fight. But there's a more realistic explanation

Sparks from McLaren F1 car at 2025 Las Vegas Grand Prix

More McLaren skid block goes up in sparks at Las Vegas

McLaren

Mark Hughes
November 26, 2025

There have, in F1’s past, been some fairly egregious attempts at artificially bringing some jeopardy to a title fight. Back in 2014 there was the double points Abu Dhabi finale, though that was decided before the season had even begun.

Back in 1994, as it became evident mid-season that Michael Schumacher was waltzing to the title in his Benetton, came the draconian penalty of a two-race ban plus a disqualification from his second place at the British Grand Prix for overtaking on the warm-up lap. Later he was disqualified from his victory in Spa because his underbody plank was below the minimum depth as a result of kerb damage from a spin.

And that’s where the story of the plank controversy really begins. But it would be another three decades before the next plank disqualifications occurred – at the 2023 USA Grand Prix where the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc were thrown out of the results. Earlier this season Hamilton’s Ferrari and Pierre Gasly’s Alpine were excluded in China after similar infringements. And last weekend, injecting extra late-season spice into the title battle, points leader Lando Norris and his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri lost their respective second and fourth places to plank infringements.

Or more accurately, skid block infringements. Because after Schumacher’s Spa disqualification it was accepted that in future there should be a way of measuring which would not necessarily make a damaged floor illegal. So metal mounting points – or skid blocks – were introduced at prescribed points flush with the plank to protect it. These – rather than the plank itself – are now where the measurement is taken. They are mounted around a small hole in the plank so that a measurement can be made. If the skids are below the prescribed 9mm deep after the race, then so will be the plank and therefore disqualification will follow.

F1 skid block diagram

It is this which rubbishes the theory going around after Brazil that teams were running heat-expanding skids in order to be able to run the car lower, the claim being that as they heated up and expanded as the car was forced lower into the ground by the downforce at speed, so the expanding skid blocks would artificially limit how low the car could run at high speeds. That limitation would then allow you to run a lower static ride height and take advantage of that at lower speeds. But that was all predicated on the mistaken belief that the plank – and not the skid blocks – is what is measured. It is not. Obviously, heat-expanding skid blocks are actually the last thing you want in that case. It was another wild conspiracy theory which took root and became ‘fact’, rather like Red Bull’s brake steer in 2024. But McLaren’s skids were illegal and those of the other top-10 finishers – which were also checked – in Vegas were not. A misjudgement had clearly been made and there would have been a performance advantage.

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So, why did such controversies disappear for three decades and then suddenly become a thing again? That’s to do with the concept of cars defined by the regulations. On a flat-bottom car the floor’s ground effect was induced by running the car with rake, nose down/tail up. As such, the plank really didn’t take much abuse and was not a limiting factor in how much underbody downforce you could generate. But with the ground effect venturi tunnel regulations in place since 2022, with the throat of the ground effect moving from the front to the back, the fastest way was to run the car flat with a very low rear ride height. As such, the plank very much was a performance limitation – once the issue of porpoising was sorted. Those who solved the initial porpoising problems while retaining good downforce levels – ie Red Bull – were the first to encounter the limitation of the skid block wear. Hence Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez lifting off at Eau Rouge every lap at the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix when other – slower – cars were easily flat there. The advantage given around the rest of the lap from the low ride height Red Bull was able to run without porpoising was more than what was lost by lifting off at Eau Rouge to protect the skid blocks.

McLaren subsequently overtook Red Bull in creating the optimum ground effect car, running super-stiff and low at the rear and combining it with a front suspension geometry which allows the front to run super-low too. Its plank wear this season has notably been more forwards-biased than other cars — right beneath the cockpit (hence the gold heat sheathing around the seats). The lower you can run the front, the lower the rear can be and the more ground effect downforce is created. But the plank wear obviously becomes even more critical. Increasing the ride height to accommodate bumpy tracks shifts the wear further rearwards — and in Brazil and Vegas the McLaren’s skid wear bias was further rearwards than usual.

Gold plated F1 seat of Oscar Piastri

Oscar Piastri’s gold-wrapped F1 seat protects against heat generated by skid block friction

Antonin Vincent / DPPI

The lack of representative practice running contributed to the team’s optimistic estimate of how low they could run. Which led to the exclusions.

While it’s easy to see another late season title fight conspiracy in that sequence of events, the fact that it is measurable and explainable makes the conspiracy less likely. A better fit with the observed facts is that it’s just competition and that last push for every microsecond of lap time. Thresholds are bound to be crossed when events take away the reliability of your calculations in representing reality.

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