"Promising" Changes Coming To McLaren For Azerbaijan Grand Prix Sprint Weekend

Upgrades are coming, but team director Andrea Stella isn't worried about them being introduced on a sprint weekend.

McLaren's long-awaited upgrade package for their MCL60 is set to be unveiled at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. This comes after a difficult start to the season, despite the British team currently sitting fifth in the Constructor Standings. A lucky spot, considering they're only in this position after they picked up a good few points from the carnage that resulted from the Australian Grand Prix.

With the Azerbaijan GP around the corner, I wanted to summarise what we should all expect from these upcoming upgrades, especially after Andrea Stella, the team's director, has admitted he isn't "too worried" about bringing upgrades to a sprint weekend - the first of the season. 

Thanks to a new sprint format coming to the Baku circuit, teams will only have a single hour of practice before the cars are placed in Parc Ferme. The Woking-based team will have to surely pull their fingers out if they want to make the most of this for their floor upgrades.

"If there's no anomalous behaviours, then it is relatively easy [to bring upgrades on a Sprint weekend], because in modern Formula 1, you have the data," Stella admitted to the press.

"You can read the aerodynamic performance through the forces that you measure and through the pressure map around the car to the dozens of pressure sensors.

"We are not too worried in assessing whether it is positive or not unless there are some anomalies, but the cars have proven to be correlating well with the development.

"That is why we decided to introduce it even if it is a Sprint race."

How much performance could this potentially bring the team? Well, not too much. They told us to expect them to move from 6th to 5th, but upgrades coming later in the season will see them propel further up the grid, with their objective of being a top 4 team.

“When it comes to the Baku upgrade, we do see the numbers, which are promising. It’s hopefully from sixth, it will allow us to be fifth,” he said. “It’s not enough yet to achieve our objective for the season, which is to become a top-four car.

"This will require the Baku upgrade and we require another couple of upgrades following Baku on which we are working.”

The new sprint format this coming weekend will likely place the cat among the pigeons, but Stella is fully supportive of what the F1 is trying to achieve. 

"We support what F1 are trying to achieve, we support making Saturday even more exciting and with more racing content, compared to simply having the Free Practice 2 session where you have cars running around, but we don't think that's a very useful session – so we are supportive."