McLaren are confident of achieving a front-row start for at least one of their cars at the Spanish GP this weekend.
They have managed to secure an early lead in both championships despite not having the quickest car on the grid. Jenson Button currently leads the WDC by ten points, whilst the team lead the WCC by 19 points ahead of Ferrari.
Their highest qualifying position has only been fourth, both Red Bull and Ferrari have dominated qualifying whilst Mercedes haven’t been far behind.
The Woking based team will introduce several upgrades including new front and rear wings, as well as a tweaked floor which, McLaren’s Chief Engineer, Tim Goss, believes will significantly close the gap to Red Bull and Ferrari.
“We certainly have closed the gap,” Goss said in a McLaren phone-in. “In Barcelona, it depends very much on how the pecking order changes as a result of upgrades.”
“We certainly know we’ve made a decent step forwards, but I’m fully expecting that the other teams, Red Bull, certainly Mercedes – they have announced they have made some significant changes to the car – and Ferrari – who have announced they’re going to bring their own drag reduction rear wing.
“I think it is very difficult to make any predictions about Barcelona, although I’d like to think we can put a car on the front row.”
Goss went onto confirm the updates Mclaren would be bringing to the car for Barcelona.
“The ones you’ll notice are the front wing and the rear wing, both of which are reasonably significant changes,” he said.
“On top of that there are then some fairly small, subtle changes to other changes to the car and as ever some of the subtlest changes are actually quite significant.
“Plus, finally if you look at the rear of the car, there is a small change to the floor just at the back.”
