McLaren Expect Struggle in Spain

Ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend, the teams in the F1 paddock can easily be divided into “trustfuls” and “doubtfuls”. While leading teams of the championship – Brawn GP, Toyota, Red Bull Racing or even Renault – are expecting a boost in performance at Barcelona, other outfits are trying to keep their optimism more undercover.

It is the case of McLaren Mercedes, as the German car maker's motorsport director Norbert Haug said he doesn't expect the new package to deliver the whooping results everyone is expecting of them. Talking to Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Haug revealed he expects the Woking team to struggle during the Catalonian event.

“I do not have the impression that there has been a dramatic improvement. If I say we will struggle, I am not being a prophet of doom,” Haug told the aforementioned source, as reported by planetf1.com.

Having a rather poor history in terms of winning races at Circuit de Catalonia, McLaren have decided not to bring any major revisions to their MP4-24 at their European debut. The Woking based team have chosen a more of a race-to-race development for their challenger this season, a concept which practically excludes overwhelming updates for a certain event.

McLaren have already debuted their own version of the double diffuser in China, while several other aerodynamic features have been introduced on the MP4-24 during the last few races.

Archrivals BMW have, in turn, prepared a completely new package for the Barcelona race. However, as argued by driver Robert Kubica, it seems the engineers at Hinwil don't expect a major step forward in the F1.09's performances, as the new updates are only focused on slightly improving the car's downforce level.