After Belgium, McLaren's Goodyear tyres suffered a slump in competitiveness and the team and their car fell behind rivals Graham Hill in his Lotus and Stewart in his Matra. At the Dutch Grand Prix McLaren crashed out and Hulme retired with ignition failure. After Lotus had begun the first experimentation with wings in Monaco and Ferrari and Brabham had debuted full height wings in Belgium, McLaren fitted a rear wing to their car for the French Grand Prix. However, mounted above the engine on the sprung mass of the car, it was not as effective as Lotus's wing mounted on the unsprung suspension components. In France Hulme was fourth, then fifth in Britain but both cars were out of the points-earning positions at the German Grand Prix.