McLaren’s updated MCL33, featuring a radical front-end upgrade as well as other tweaks, has broken cover ahead of this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.
The updated nose section was presented in the pit lane on Thursday evening at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, as the team took the car to scrutineering.
Stoffel Vandoorne had promised earlier on Thursday that the MCL33 would “look quite different”, as the operation bids to close the gap to the front-runners.
“What counts for us is how the car will handle and how it will perform on track, we’ll see tomorrow a bit more already I think,” said Vandoorne.
“We’ll have two busy sessions where we’ll try a lot of various things across both cars to understand this package, then we’ll know a bit more tomorrow about performance.”
Vandoorne added that “probably the entry of the corners is an area where we could extract a bit more I could say, the rear stability in the car,” when discussing the MCL33’s updates.
McLaren holds fourth position in the Constructors’ Championship, having scored points at each Grand Prix, but its qualifying pace has been a primary weakness.
Neither Vandoorne nor McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso have escaped Q2 yet this season.