McLaren will use the actual 2018 car they hoped to race with in Australia at next month’s Spanish GP, racing director Eric Boullier has claimed.
A disrupted pre-season primarily due to side effects of a greater overheating problem caused a delay in the upgrade to their chassis which they hoped to use from the first race in Melbourne.
Using what could be considered an adapted 2017 car to accommodate the Renault engine and with some further developed aerodynamic parts, the British team has scored points in the first three races with Fernando Alonso but has also struggled, particularly in qualifying.
“It’s just frustrating to see that we have such performance or pace in the race, and we are unable to unlock yet that performance in qualifying,” the Frenchman told Motorsport.com.
“So far we have been opportunistic, and we took the opportunities we’ve had with both drivers to take as many points as we could.”
Hopes had been very high for McLaren for this year with claims the change in engine supplier could potentially shoot the Woking-based squad just behind the top three teams.
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Alonso since suggested the expectations were perhaps too high, but Boullier hopes the real MCL33 will provide a boost.
“The 2018 car is coming to Barcelona and obviously we hope that’s the car we expect it to be, he said.
“The car we have now is as per plan, it’s not that we missed the [performance] targets with it but we missed the schedule targets with it.”