McLaren aim for front row with updated car

McLaren is targetting the front row of the grid at this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix with an updated car featuring new front and rear wings and a revised floor among a host of changes.

The team is currently leading both the drivers' and constructors' championships and has two wins and two podiums, but qualifying has been its Achilles' Heel and it has yet to get a car on the front row of the grid.

However the designer of the McLaren MP4-25, Tim Goss, said today in a Vodafone backed McLaren team phone-in today with the leading websites that he was hopeful that the updates would give the team a qualifying boost in Barcelona,

" I'd like to think that we can put a car on the front in Barcelona. We know that we've made a decent step forwards, but we know that Red Bull, Mercedes have announced significant changes and Ferrari are going to bring their own drag reduction rear wing. " he said.

"We certainly have closed the gap. In China barring the slip up Lewis had in qualifying we proved that we had closed the gap. We were probably only 2 or 3 tenths off the Red Bull in qualifying pace."

Although McLaren has won two races it has been making life hard for itself by qualifying poorly. Neither driver has managed better than fourth on the grid so far. The team brought some significant changes to the car in Malaysia to improve qualifying and this is its second go at it.

Goss also explained why Hamilton has twice gone into qualifying with a strong car only to fall short in the decisive phase. This happened in both Australia and China,

"In Australia, in was down to tyre preparations, getting them into the correct window of performance for qualifying. We were slightly out and Lewis never hooked it up. It was our own advice to him (that was at fault).

"In China we were particularly competitive in Q1 and Q2 but then in Q3 the wind picked up and it caught Lewis out in Turn 11. He made a small mistake and the repercussions were costly and the result was that he underperformed."