» Is McLaren running forward-facing exhausts?

There are suggestions that McLaren has taken a leaf out of Renault’s book, with photos taken from the opening day of testing at Jerez seeming to indicate that the Woking outfit has managed to quickly develop its own forward-facing exhaust system.

The MP4-26 unveiled at the press launch in Berlin last week seems to have undergone extensive revisions in the week between it and the start of the next pre-season test in Spain, according to reports in Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

We had reported that the new McLaren would – by dint of the team deciding to delay the launch of its new car – run with the revolutionary forward-facing exhaust layout pioneered by the Renault F1 team’s R31, which Robert Kubica took to the top of the timesheets on the last day of testing at Valencia before the Pole injured himself in a rallying crash over the weekend.

The newspaper’s correspondent at Jerez claims that the rearward-facing exhausts displayed on the ‘launch version’ MP4-26 have now vanished, with photographs showing what appear to be forward-facing exhausts exiting at the front of the car’s unusually-shaped sidepods.

[Original image via Sutton Images]