McLaren brings almost an entirely new F1 car to Barcelona with its huge set of upgrades

McLaren has been very vague regarding its upgrades heading into the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix but finally revealed all its modifications earlier today. With a total of ten significant upgrades, it is safe to say that the Woking-based team will be showing up to Barcelona with almost a new car altogether.

The front wing flap, louvers, floor, front brake duct, rear wing, rear brake duct winglet, and the diffuser of the MCL36, all have been modified, while one of the cockpit strakes has reportedly been removed. New sidepods have been developed and the front suspension has been revised, all to help McLaren get back into a form closer to representing the team's performance from last season.

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"Just not as fast" - Daniel Ricciardo on McLaren's struggles ahead of Spanish GP

Ahead of the Spanish GP, Daniel Ricciardo spoke about where McLaren is facing challenges and how he expects the upgrades to create a step-up for the team.

Commenting on the challenges faced by his team so far, the Australian spoke in a media interaction ahead of FP1, saying:

“It’s just not as fast as, some others you know so if we were the fastest I would say the car’s pretty good but it’s all relative. It’s just I mean now like overall like grip and load. I think we’re still obviously trying to discover and learn with these new cars and everyone’s brought updates this weekend or at least most teams and that’s kind of an accumulation of what we’ve learned in the first few races and so I think this weekend should bring like the field spread a little closer, a little tighter if everyone’s kind of done the math correctly and yeah hopefully that means we can just be better closer and fight more towards the front more often.”

Having driven the simulator with the upgrades on the car, Ricciardo claims that, while he does expect an improvement, he is not too sure whether it will be a significant change as compared to the rest of the teams. He said:

“Yeah I have [tried the simulator], it told me that stopwatch was a little better so yes like that was good. But I like this. I don’t want this to be pessimistic but let’s say conservative, like you still need to try it and prove it out on the circuit you know and so. I’m not going to say yeah we’re going to be you know whatever half a second quicker straight away. We need to see how it is it could be better could be worse but also even if we gain a second if everyone else gains 1.5 seconds then you know like it’s so it’s relative but so far it felt like it’s a definitely a step in the right direction.”

The team currently stands fourth in the constructors' standings and is hoping to take the fight to Mercedes ahead of it.