The updates each F1 team should bring to Spain

Traditionally, the Spanish Grand Prix is the round at which the majority of the Formula 1 fraternity bolt on their largest upgrades of the season so far. With Barcelona relatively close to most of their factories and the cars back home from the early-season flyaways, it's the perfect opportunity to bolt on updates.

Now armed with four rounds worth of data, each team will have some idea of what it needs to work on, and engineers will be working into the small hours producing countless simulations to try to dig out some extra performance.

So, where do those points of focus lie for each team? Here's a list of what we might expect to see at Barcelona from F1's 10 current incumbents.

Mercedes: Just keep it going

Arguably, Mercedes has already brought its big Barcelona upgrade - albeit two months ago in pre-season testing. There, in the second test, the W10 shed its skin and came bearing brand new bodywork, and this has since been followed up with a marginal gains ethos to keep the team's momentum going.

That's something that Mercedes must continue. The car itself looks well-balanced, with a vast operating window that means Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas are guaranteed to be there or thereabouts every weekend.

If there's any real shortfall in comparison to Ferrari, it's straightline speed, something that Mercedes certainly used to have in its back pocket until the Maranello squad got its engine package together. Ferrari bringing forward an engine upgrade to this weekend is ominous on that front too.

Although the Mercedes power unit is pretty bulletproof, the Brixworth engineers will very much be trying to get back level. There seems to be a slight power deficit compared to Ferrari and, although that's not been a hindrance so far in 2019, everything under the skin could do with beefing up, especially to keep the vastly-improving Honda from the door.

Ferrari: Fast but furious

First and foremost, the Ferrari engine is phenomenal. Ferrari and Shell have worked hard to squeeze out as much performance as possible with its lubricants, and it has surpassed Mercedes in the grunt stakes. But that has come at the cost of reliability.

The stoppages from testing have largely been quelled, and Charles Leclerc's dropped cylinder in Bahrain was traced back to the control electronics - for which a new system was devised for China. Problems are being worked on, but Ferrari's season so far resembles the fairground game Whack-A-Mole: one problem is taken care of when another crops up. How the accelerated engine upgrade for this weekend affects that will be an intriguing question.

"When the track is not so smooth, Ferrari struggles more than the others" Giorgio Piola

Once the testing woe had been fixed, it turned out that the Ferrari has a very narrow operating window. When the SF90 fitted within that window in Bahrain, reliability issues reared their heads again, snatching victory from Leclerc. The car seems unsettled in the low-speed corners, doing nothing for driver confidence, and that's something the team needs to address. And it must do so quickly, lest Mercedes canter any further into the distance.

Giorgio Piola says

This year, Ferrari has made a car that's a very big evolution from last year's, and for 2019 it has produced a very sophisticated aerodynamics package that creates a very low-drag car. It's very fast, with a big reduction in size - especially on the engine cover. That's the reason why, very often, the SF90 is fastest in the speed traps. Ferrari has also made a very tightly-assembled cooling package, which is installed very neatly to improve the airflow to the rear wing.

The powerful rear wing has made it difficult for Ferrari to balance it with the front of the car. It needs to achieve more downforce, and for Spain there will be another new aero package. Another positive point for Ferrari was the fact that it made a big change last time out in Baku, and with another upgrade already coming, this shows Ferrari is reacting much faster than it did last year.

The negative point for this year that the 2019 Ferrari can warm its tyres for qualifying, but has been suffering with the rubber more in the races. It was also evident in Baku that it had a higher fuel consumption rate compared to its main rival. Mercedes ended that race with 7.5kg of fuel, while Ferrari had to go down with the power at the end just to finish. At Barcelona, 10kg of fuel is almost three tenths of a second per lap, so that's quite a big handicap for the race.

Another negative with the SF90 is the suspension, which is much more conventional compared to the Mercedes and Red Bull. At the back, Ferrari took hydraulic suspension while the front is more standard, so it's very limited in terms of its evolution. When the track is not so smooth, Ferrari struggles more than the others.

Red Bull: Steady progress with Honda

It was always going to be a transitional season for the new Red Bull/Honda partnership in 2019, especially given that the team has an entirely new engine manufacturer to work with for the first time in 12 years, but it's off to an encouraging start.

In Baku, Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly were classified second and third in the speed trap during the race, suggesting that the latest specification of Honda has got plenty of grunt.

But it's not a fully optimised part of the jigsaw just yet; a year of gestation within the sister Toro Rosso set-up will have bought Red Bull some familiarity, but there's still work to do here. ExxonMobil's fuels and lubricants have been more geared towards working with the Renault engine over the past couple of seasons, and so it must tailor its products towards the operating conditions within the Honda power unit.

Upgrades have been pretty forthcoming, and Red Bull has only hinted at a couple of "subtle" improvements to the front and rear wing packages for Barcelona - continuing on its current trajectory. So there's not too much to expect from the team in Spain, and that's probably sensible - the car's not far away from being in the mix, but it just needs an extra tenth or two to really put the bull among the pigeons (or horses).

When Gasly gets up to speed, and if the steady stream of upgrades can outweigh those developed by Mercedes and Ferrari, then Christian Horner's jiggling foot of excitement on the pitwall may become a more regular occurrence.

Renault: Inherent flaws leave drivers uncomfortable

For a team that said its 2019 car was all-new, and that the only carryover from the '18 machine was the steering geometry, the R.S.19 looked amazingly familiar. For all of the investment from Renault, it appears as though its designers are collectively chasing their tails a little bit. Nico Hulkenberg suggested that this year's car has "similar problems" to last year's, which may mean that a key change in direction is needed.

"I wouldn't be surprised if a front wing, bargeboard or underfloor part is not working as expected" Gary Anderson

But that's not something that's going to happen overnight; unless Renault has been plotting a B-spec car. There are some inherent flaws to this year's car that have left Hulkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo scratching their heads on plenty of occasions.

The powertrain's still not quite there either. A Renault in the back doesn't quite command the same respect and fear compared to the Mercedes and Ferrari power units, and Honda is proving to be something of a force to be reckoned with too. There seems to be something of a disconnect between the engineers based in the UK, and those dealing with engine matters in Viry-Chatillon.

Gary Anderson says

Over the winter, much was promised by Renault's top brass, but in reality none of it has come to pass - the car has not been reliable, and just not fast enough.

Hulkenberg and Ricciardo are proven high quality drivers, but it appears that neither can get confidence in the car, especially on the brakes and corner entry, and this usually comes from the fact that the drivers are not getting the feedback from the chassis to allow them to feel comfortable pushing to the limit. This can come from many things, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was from a front wing, bargeboard or underfloor part that is not working as expected or predicted.

When the parts that are ground sensitive have a peaky performance, it can knock the drivers' confidence pretty quickly and the tendency is to set the car up a bit stiffer to keep it out of its critical range. But this just takes away some of the compliance that the driver uses to feel the car load up - alerting them to where the limit is.

The aerodynamic working window of the car needs to be widened, reducing how critical the front wing, bargeboards and underfloor are to airflow separation problems. If the driver can get more feedback, then they will be able to push closer to the limit for more of the time - and this will also help with their understanding of what the car needs to go faster and with tyre preparation.

Haas: Solve the tyre troubles

The Haas VF-19 looked so well-balanced in testing - 'benign' was the word of choice for Autosport at the time - and Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen seemed totally at ease with their team's fourth F1 car, bar a headrest issue Magnussen was having in the opening week of pre-season.

But the wheels have come off a little bit - quite literally, in Grosjean's case at Albert Park. A few operational errors seem to creep in every now and then, and reliability in testing was a cause for concern. Thankfully, that concern has abated at the moment.

Haas's biggest issue is one with tyres - namely, it just can't switch them on. For 2019, Pirelli's tyres have a little less tread, meaning that there's less heat build-up on the surface of the rubber, mitigating the effect of blistering. Conversely that means it's much harder to keep the tyres within their best operating range, instead paving the way for graining. As the tyre slides across the surface of the road, pockets of rubber are grazed off and then reattach to the tyre.

Although it's possible to push through that phase, Haas is hugely struggling to combat it. The car is unable to get its tyres warm enough to stop sliding around on the track surface. That's something that the team is aware of, perhaps needing a little more rear-end downforce just to stabilise that area and ensure the energy transferred through the tyre is a little more linear. Upgrades are forthcoming for Spain, and, hopefully, the team will get a handle on those issues.

McLaren: Must not look back

At last it seems that, for all of the malaise McLaren has suffered for the past few years, a steady ascent might be in the offing. As it looked to reclaim its former glory, McLaren was guilty of looking back into the past.

The rekindled relationship with Honda was fraught, the reinstallation of Ron Dennis as team principal didn't really work, and Fernando Alonso's return had more bad moments than good.

The 2019 season is the first real clean-sheet test since then. McLaren has young, hungry drivers and a reshuffled technical team has ensured that the squad has made an excellent start. As it stands, in the championship standings at least, the team is best of the rest.

McLaren has to keep that momentum going. It fell off a cliff this time last year, and can ill afford a fall from grace for the second season in a row. There's still more to come from Renault on the engine front, but the pace shown by Carlos Sainz Jr and Lando Norris in Baku underlined some good power. New technical chief James Key's arrival will bear fruit soon, but Zak Brown and Gil de Ferran must ensure that wires don't get crossed, as that could derail the team's technical progress.

McLaren cannot afford to look back again, lest it fall down the order once more among such a tight midfield bunch. If McLaren can instead be prudent in its upgrade strategy, and keep Sainz and Norris firing on all cylinders, then a stealthy podium might be in the offing.

Alfa Romeo: Iron out mistakes, get Giovinazzi firing

The Alfa Romeo C38 has done an excellent job of picking up where last year's Sauber - which underwent a transformation throughout 2018 - left off. Kimi Raikkonen has got stuck into the challenge of leading the team where he cut his teeth in F1, and his years of experience can be invaluable in helping the engineers pinpoint how the car can progress.

"There's still not quite the precision in the front that the drivers need in qualifying" Jake Boxall-Legge

But there's been a few inconsistencies in how the team operates that need to be ironed out. At the back of the grid, strategic and engineering mistakes are less obvious, but in the tight midfield, teams need to be flawless operationally. With engine installation issues in the first Shanghai practice session sidelining Antonio Giovinazzi, and this being paired with Raikkonen being thrown out of Baku qualifying for an overly-flexing front wing, Alfa has work to do in that regard. If it doesn't address these, it risks squandering results.

Is there a chance that Alfa could stray away from its radical front wing concept? During testing, Raikkonen was frequently seen snatching the brakes at Barcelona's Turn 10 hairpin - suggesting that the front end concept is sacrificing a fair chunk of downforce. While that seems to have been largely dialled out with track time, there's still not quite the precision in the front that the drivers need in qualifying.

The team also needs to get Giovinazzi up to speed quickly, as all of Alfa's 13 points have come courtesy of Raikkonen so far.

Racing Point: Must play to its strengths

Although the ex-Force India team had been hamstrung by a lack of budget during the crucial development phase of what would become the RP19 in 2018, Lawrence Stroll's investment is beginning to yield returns.

Racing Point has added a few upgrades here and there after bringing a 'vanilla' car to testing, and there's more in the offing. Although the car is probably eighth- or ninth-best as it stands, Sergio Perez has been his tenacious best - punching above his weight and taking advantage of any circumstances that come his way.

Crucially, the technical team was kept together during last season's financially-driven turmoil. It's also got recent experience in turning around compromised cars, too, as last year's VJM11 didn't start off on the best foot, and in the face of adversity it was developed into a frequent points-botherer.

With more money in the coffers, the team can be more bold with bringing in updates - but it must not stray too far from its roots. Force India finished fourth overall for two consecutive seasons on the strength of its steady upgrade packages and ability to identify key areas for improvement. The extra funds must be spent wisely if Racing Point is to return to those heights.

Specifically, the 2019 car's aero package still requires a bit of an overhaul to really get the best out of its Mercedes powerplant, and Lance Stroll needs a little more confidence on turn-in to find more frequent escapes from Q1. Finding some extra traction and downforce out of future upgrades will be absolutely key.

Toro Rosso: Needs to get lucky

The championship table doesn't show the merits of the STR14, as Toro Rosso's haul only stands at four points despite its obvious upper-midfield credentials.

Arguably, one improvement that the team needs to make is to turn around its luck - even if this is ultimately out of its control. Daniil Kvyat was unlucky to get embroiled in - and penalised for - a tangle in China, before being reversed into by former team-mate Ricciardo in Azerbaijan, which ended any points-scoring hopes there. Alex Albon's efforts so far have been excellent, but he's not quite had the opportunity to break any further into the top 10 than ninth in Bahrain.

Quiet, persistent technical evolution is something that the team must promote to keep its place in the midfield, and doing something to improve overall rear-end stability would definitely afford its drivers a bit more confidence on the circuit.

Williams: Build from the roots up

The 2019 season is already a lost cause. Williams turned up late to testing, with a slow car that flitted between the bounds of legality, and none of the first four races have shown any suggestion that there will be an immediate recovery. Both of its drivers have frequently been over a second slower than the rest of the field and, unless there's an attrition-hit race at some stage soon, scoring a point looks out of the question.

Williams has to leave no stone unturned to work out what's gone wrong with its design process. Two duds in a row isn't befitting of the team's engineering prowess, and certainly doesn't do justice to the Mercedes powerplant it uses.

The FW42 needs a wholesale shake-up. But Williams's problem is that even if its engineers find a second of lap time, there's still more needed to close up the gap to the rest of the grid. There's a bit of a thankless task ahead for all of those working at Grove to steady the ship.

Gary Anderson says

In 2014 and '15 Williams finished third in the constructors championship. I remember a quote from performance director Rob Smedley, who had just joined from Ferrari. He said that, contrary to Ferrari, Williams's aerodynamic upgrades actually worked on the track.

But since 2016, it's been a slippery slope to the back of the field, and by some margin.

The net result is that Paddy Lowe has lost his job with Williams. He is no fool, but today's Formula 1 is not a one-man show and there are a lot of very intelligent people in Grove all working to design a competitive car. Clearly, there is something in the way that Williams goes about its research that is tripping it up.

Since 2014-15 the cars and the tyres have got wider, and the potential to produce downforce from what's called outwash airflow around both the front and rear tyres has become more demanding. Any potential restriction in windtunnel width or rolling road belt width will have a serious effect on that, which can lead a team astray very quickly.

If I was in Williams's position I would be looking at potential problems in that area, and not just the car design. Sometimes, you have to step back to move forward, and with this current breed of car it is critically important to make sure that the tools being used are actually giving truthful results.