New parts boost McLaren victory bid

Recent improvements to the car helped Lewis Hamilton take the team's first win of the season in Hungary before the summer break, and hopes are high that another good result could be on the cards this time out.

Team principal Martin Whitmarsh revealed on Wednesday that improvements brought to the car would be tried out separately by Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen in first practice for the European GP.

"This coming weekend we have a new front wing system for the car to hopefully bring some more performance," said Whitmarsh during a 'Phone-in' media call on Wednesday.

"You will see that will be on one car in P1, with the new rear floor on the other car in P1...we need to back-to-back the new front wing and rear floor modifications, so by P2 both cars will have converged on the same specification."

Added to the outright car improvements, Whitmarsh believes that its KERS could give it a decisive edge now that its MP4-24 is near the front of the field.

"Now there is no doubt that KERS is an advantage," he explained. "We have potentially a small lap time advantage, we have an overtake or defend advantage and certainly, if we can get near the front of the grid, then we have a launch advantage.

"At the beginning of the year we were frankly too far back on the grid to be able to exploit the launch advantage that KERS should be giving us, but it is now coming together and it is an advantage, and a real interesting technical challenge for everyone in the team and the drivers."