McLaren confirm updated MCL36 for Spanish GP

McLaren’s MCL36 will be updated with new parts for this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, the team’s first major changes of the season.

McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris will have the benefit of some new parts to try out this weekend at the Spanish Grand Prix.

The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya played host to the first on-track session of the 2022 season and new regulation cycle, meaning this weekend allows teams the opportunity an excellent opportunity to correlate the improvements they’ve made so far this season as well as trial new components against already gathered data.

Many of the teams are expected to bring bigger update packages for this weekend’s race, including Ferrari, Red Bull, and Mercedes, while McLaren have also confirmed the MCL36 will boast some new components.

“We are bringing some upgrades to the car for the weekend,” McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl said in his official race preview.

“I know it’s been an extremely busy week or so for many of the teams making changes ahead of Barcelona, so it’s going to continue to be a tight fight for points.”

With McLaren amongst the star performers at the Spanish pre-season test, Seidl said comparison work will be crucial as they fettle in their new parts.

“We performed well at this track in pre-season testing, so it will be interesting to see how our car will perform with the upgrades we’ve made since then,” he said.

“Hopefully we can have some good battles and get both cars back into the fight for good points.”

During what was a tough maiden season with McLaren in 2021, Barcelona represented one of Ricciardo’s stronger weekends as he qualified in seventh before racing to sixth place.

With the Woking-based squad eager to bounce back from a tough weekend in