"With the current spec of Formula One™ cars the two key areas are double-diffuser and front wing, so those are the two main areas we've been looking to improve," explains Gascoyne. "We've also made big upgrades to the brake ducts and sidepods."
"On pure aero terms, the package will be worth about one second. I would imagine this will leave us in the same position as we were in for the first four races, but instead of being 1.5 seconds off the pace we'll be 0.5 off. But we will be ahead of Virgin and HRT."
"Will we qualify higher up the grid? Probably not, but we'll be racing the cars in front rather than the ones behind."
Mike believes that the sensible approach is to put more resources into designing next year’s car, rather than try to develop the T127 too much this summer.
"There's an argument for saying that, once we're in that position [ahead of all the other new teams and on pace with Sauber and Toro Rosso], we should now concentrate on next year's car. We want to finish in the top ten because that's worth money. Will we beat Toro Rosso and Sauber? Probably not, but who cares if we qualify 15th or 17th? Better to focus on 2011 so we can look at qualifying in the top ten 12 months from now. We need to take a long term view in order to take this team where we want to be."
"It's a balancing act, because we want to look like we're moving forward now, but we want to make a big step forward in 2011. So that's our priority and [Team Principal] Tony Fernandes agrees with this approach."
SIDEPOD INLETS
"The sidepod inlets are heavily modified. Again, we had to make decisions on side-impact tubes, engine cooling etc without having done any proper aero or engine testing. So basically we had to design a generic sidepod inlet. The actual inlet itself doesn't look so different but the bottom floor and turning vane are extensively modified."
BRAKE DUCTS
"One of the problems with being a new team and starting our aero program very late was we had to be very conservative on the brake ducts, because with no-refueling and therefore very heavy cars, the braking requirement was always going to be a lot heavier. With limited information and wind tunnel testing we had to take a very conservative approach, especially in Bahrain which is very heavy on brakes. We did it right because we encountered no problems, but we were giving away a lot of aero performance in the front and rear brake ducts. They might not look like much but, of our upgrade package, the brake ducts are 20 percent. They're a massive step forward."
BODYWORK
"The actual bodywork won't look any different. There's no real gain to be made there. We created a car with a lot of margin for cooling etc and at the launch a lot of journalists commented that the bodywork was conventional and a bit chubby. I was keen to slim it down, but for the cost of building a new body we would rather put that money into areas that will see a much greater return – like the areas outlined here for our Barcelona upgrade."
REAR WING
"We will be introducing a new rear wing, but that's probably going to miss Barcelona. It won't have an F-Duct because we've just got other areas to tackle. Plus an F-Duct means weight high up at the rear and we want weight down low and at the front, so that's not an area we're chasing."
DIFFUSER
"We've got a totally new diffuser and floor which will dramatically improve airflow."
FRONT WING
"The new front wing is an entirely different concept to the old one. It's very heavily modified and obviously that has a dramatic impact on the flow around the car downstream. So we've changed the front brake ducts too. The front wing is the one part everyone will noticed has changed."