McLaren F1 team considers radical approach for later in season

McLaren is ready to gamble on a radical overhaul of its current Formula 1 car if its fortunes have not improved by the British Grand Prix

The Woking-based outfit endured it third-consecutive non-score at Barcelona last weekend, with Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen struggling for pace.

The team is hopeful that downforce improvements already discovered at the factory, which are being prepared for the next few races, should help lift it closer to the front.

Racing director Eric Boullier believes that by the British GP in July McLaren will have the answer as to how well its recovery is going.

"We have put everything in place," he said during a McLaren phone-in with media on Tuesday.

"It is true that we are starting from quite far back to be honest, but we have a very good rate in terms of development.

"Monaco and Canada are a bit special in terms of their track layout, so the question of how capable we are of catching up, and how fast we are catching up, will be for Austria and Silverstone.

"I am not saying we will be win Silverstone, but we will know more about our capability to catch up in these races."

When asked by AUTOSPORT if a failure to make progress by Silverstone would therefore tempt the team to write off the season and divert all resources to next year, Boullier said: "I don't think we will shift our focus to 2015.

"Now, with the restriction we have in the wind tunnel with running the '30/30 rule' - it is different to the old days when you [could] run 24/7 and throw a lot of energy and resources in to the wind tunnel.

"But, it is a possible that we will draw a line by Silverstone and we may go with more radical concepts rather than going to the 2015 car - whose concept we are already working on as well."

The '30/30 rule' relates to the tighter restrictions imposed on teams this year in terms of trading off the use of wind tunnels and CFD.

Teams are allowed a maximum of up to 30 hours per week of wind tunnel time or 30 teraflop of CFD data - or a combination of both.

Boullier also believes that the current McLaren should be more suited to the low-speed nature of the Monaco circuit.

"Monaco could be not bad for us," he said. "The reason is because our car is well balanced in low speed corners and very driveable, so Monaco could hurt us less."