Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

New spec Honda due in Barcelona

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McLaren racing director Eric Boullier says Honda will have “another spec” of power unit at the start of the European season.

Following the Bahrain Grand Prix - where Boullier says Honda will be able to “power up” the engine - Formula One heads back to Europe for the Spanish Grand Prix on May 10. While McLaren is hoping to make strides at Sakhir this weekend, a bigger step should come in Barcelona where there will be upgrades for both the power unit and the MP4-30 itself.

“In Barcelona then we have another spec coming, we keep going and improving every race,” Boullier said.

“I’m not saying any dates [to get to the front] because every race we bring improvements. The potential of the engine we know is quite high, they have been quite ambitious because we keep repeating it but if you want to beat Mercedes you have to be better than them.

“So we know there is some potential in the engine, there will be a push for the European campaign and even on the car itself we have another strong aerodynamic package coming in Barcelona.”

And Boullier is excited by the potential for McLaren to make a big jump up the grid in the near future. Asked if the team could suddenly hit the sweet spot with the power unit, Boullier replied: “Exactly.

“The gap in the midfield is not that high and we are gaining half a second, more or less, every weekend. So then in one go we could go in to the middle or maybe even the front of the midfield. It’s not our target, but…”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.