McLaren chief Andrea Stella has revealed the team’s upgrade plan, including “kind of a B-spec car” coming later this year.
The Woking-based outfit has had a very poor start to the 2023 Formula 1 season, currently sitting bottom of the Constructors’ Championship with a best finish of 15th for Oscar Piastri in Jeddah.
In response, McLaren has made major changes to their technical structure with three new positions created and the departure of former executive technical director James Key.
Asked about the impact of the technical overhaul on Thursday, Stella explained: “The model, which I prefer to call rather than structure, the model changes will affect the delivery of performance because it will accelerate the development rate.
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“I think that we will see the impact already, not in Baku because what comes in Baku was released in design like two months ago, but definitely will impact the next round of updates.”
And as Stella then revealed, those updates will lead to a very different look for the MCL60 in the coming months.
“So the improvement of car performance should start in Baku,” he continued.
“This should affect an area of the car that I think has been clear from the presentation of the car, we weren’t entirely happy with in terms of development. It’s just the first step.
“We would expect definitely another major upgrade, which will address more areas of the car. It will be much more apparent, it’s what somebody may call kind of a B-spec car.
“And then we expect to have a further round of upgrades in the second part of the season after the [summer] shutdown.
“We hope that each of them will be able to provide a few tenths of a second, so that we put ourselves in a more realistic position to meet our ambition to become a top four car towards the end of the season.”
Asked when that “B-spec car” could be introduced, Stella replied: “I don’t want to commit to any date, but before shutdown, and then after shutdown.”