McLaren to field upgraded MCL36 at Bahrain Grand Prix

McLaren will head into the first F1 race of the 2022 season with an updated version of its all-new MCL36 says its operations director Piers Thynne.

McLaren, which will pull he covers off its new-spec car on February 11, will shakedown its MCL36 in Barcelona at the end of the month along with rival teams before putting its car through its paces during three days of pre-season testing in Bahrain.

But the Mercedes-powered machine that will line up on the grid at Sakhir on March 20 will be an upgraded version of McLaren's initial design, and more evolutions will follow.

"We know performance at race one is critical, and we’ll be delivering an upgrade package to that event, but we expect much more to follow," said Thynne in a Q&A on McLaren's website.

"One of the reasons we’re being lean on stock is that we know we want to evolve the car. There are no prizes for having six floors and six front wings at the first race.

"We’ll be taking some subtly different approaches this year to make sure production capacity is available and can respond to aerodynamic evolution. That will be key to success this year."

Like its fellow competitors, McLaren is tackling this year's big regulation overhaul with a budget cap reduced from $145m to $140m, a constraint that has justified "a cultural change of doing some things in a different way" on the production and development front for the Woking-bad outfit.

"We are very keen to be as late as possible and as lean on stock as we can be, to ensure there is opportunity to deliver upgrades in sync for race one," Thynne explained.

"The layout of the programme is fundamentally different for the ’36 compared to previous cars.

"The programme is difficult, and when you factor in the constraint of the cost cap on top of a significant engineering and manufacturing challenge, that’s when you really have to rely on great teamwork, great collaboration and a total laser focus on achieving targets.

"Ultimately, it’s the quality of our people we rely on when it gets tough, and we’re lucky because our people are second to none."

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Thynne insists McLaren's decision to manufacturer fewer parts to allow for a more flexible development budget won't put the team's inventory in peril.

"We will have smaller quantities of parts available for the ’36 than we had for the ’35M, to have room in the budget to deliver more performance," he said.

"We’re not going to ever have too few parts to run the cars, we’ll always protect that, but where in the past we would have made five or six parts, we’re dropping to five; where it was four or five, we’re dropping to four.

"Where there are multiple set-up options of a part to fit, we’re considering rationing how those choices are made, collaborating with the race engineers to make sure we’re providing the choices they will want to use, rather than the choices they might want to use – because every pound counts and we’ve got to make sure we’re spending wisely."

When McLaren's charger is unveiled at the end of next week, Thynne says the new car will embody the hard work and sense of pride of 700 people.

"It’s been a ten-month programme, passing through all areas of the team," he said. "It’s a phenomenal achievement.

"I’m really looking forward to seeing it on track, then seeing it perform against the rest of the grid, then upgrading it across the year.

"I think it’s an exciting era for the sport, with new regs and a cost cap designed to level the playing field somewhat. In the coming months it’s going to be very interesting seeing that play out."

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