After Alonso was restricted to having to battle for places outside the points in Bahrain, Bell and the rest of the team are hoping that the Spaniard, at least, will be moved back up the field by the changes. Barcelona is not generally thought of as an ‘engine circuit', so the aero and suspension changes could have more of an effect than perhaps they would if introduced at another venue.
"We are reasonably confident that the things we are putting on the car will produce a clear and definable performance advantage," Bell said, "I think we will also see some more unquantifiable benefits with improvements to the driveability and feel of the car because, if we give the drivers more confidence, particularly under braking, they can extract more performance from the car.
"So we can be reasonably confident that it will be a big step forward and that it will be multiple tenths of a second. We do have to be cautious, though, and remember that every team sees Barcelona as an opportunity to introduce a major upgrade – we just have to make sure that we take a bigger step than the other teams."
Indeed, Barcelona is one venue that every
F1 team knows well from the thousands of kilometres of testing carried out there over the winter, but Bell is optimistic that the R28 can return to the points.
"During winter testing, we did not look too bad in Barcelona and, if this trend continues, combined with the upgrades we have to the car, then we should take a step forward," he reiterated, "Barcelona is very much a circuit that separates the wheat from the chaff in terms of aerodynamic performance and, while we recognise that we are deficient there in comparison to the frontrunners, but I still feel we can do a good job."
