McLaren testing radical new wing

The wing, which features an extra plane that spans above the nose and is mounted on the front wing end plates, is the result of what the team have openly admitted has been an aggressive development programme ahead of the Barcelona race.

The four-week break between the Bahrain Grand Prix and the race in Spain has allowed all the teams breathing space to work on developments, and McLaren's wing is already believed to have been evaluated during their straightline work they conducted in Menorca last week.

McLaren's main rivals Ferrari and BMW Sauber have both made use of an extra high-plane this year on the front wing, although these have been attached to the side of the nosecone rather than running above the top of it.

McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh said last week that the fight for the championship between Ferrari and his team would almost certainly be decided by the rate of development the two outfits were working at.

"It is now very clear that this year's championships will be as much decided in the race to develop the car as the racing that occurs on Sunday afternoons," he explained. "We are now in the middle of a relatively large and unprecedented gap in Formula One racing, with a four week interval.

"During this time we are testing at the Barcelona circuit where the next race will be held. We would therefore target the largest incremental improvement in car performance from one race to another.

"This will not just be with Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, but within all of the teams in the sport. As a result, the whole organisation is working extremely hard to ensure that we make as big, if not bigger, incremental improvement to the lap time performance of the MP4-22 versus any of our competitors."

Confidence at McLaren is high after a strong start to the campaign that has resulted in both Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton tieing with Kimi Raikkonen at the head of the drivers' championship.

Hamilton's impressive arrival in F1 has been further sealed by the Briton admitting last weekend that he is no longer just dreaming about taking his first victory in the Spanish Grand Prix.

"I don't dream about [winning] Spain - I definitely think about it," he said in an interview with ITV. "Everyone has a dream, and although I'm living my dream still, there's more dreams and more ambitions that will keep me going for plenty of years to come."