McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh has admitted that the new McLaren MP4-27 will look different when it makes its testing debut, saying that the launch car had plastic exhausts and the team have a raft of new parts ready to test.
The new MP4-27 was launched last week in a media event at the team's Woking headquarters.
McLaren's new car showed off what appeared to be a pair of exhausts that stuck out from either side of the sidepods.
For 2012, teams have been forced to revert to 'periscope'-style exhaust exits, after the FIA banned the 2011-spec underbody exits as part of their ban on blown diffusers.
But teams are expected to experiment with a number of different solutions to the new exhaust rules, and Whitmarsh has admitted that the launch-spec MP4-27 exhausts were fake.
"The exhaust was made of plastic, you won’t see those components in that form again," he bragged to the German Auto Moto und Sport publication.
Teams often work to disguise the full extent of their new designs during launch season, and the German report also suggested the McLaren had a fake diffuser package on at the unveiling.
Whitmarsh added that the team was already planning to roll out a series of pre-season upgrades to their car, as they look to arrive at the season opener in the best-possible shape.
"The car will look different at Jerez to what it looked last week, and a lot different in Australia," he grinned.
"At the weekend [in Spain] we did an aero test where we had a series of news parts that were not on the car at Woking."
It is not clear if the new parts set to be added to the MP4-27 might explain the curious pre-launch quotes from within the team that their new car might be protested by their rivals.
Prior to the car's launch, quotes emerged from McLaren suggesting that the design pushed legality rules to the limit.
But the car that was launched appeared comfortably legal, while the news report featuring the quotes was pulled shortly after being published.
McLaren begin their pre-season testing work tomorrow at the Jerez circuit, with Jenson Button set to drive the car for the first day.
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