Lewis Hamilton will head into the McLaren factory in Woking and again demand the kind of effort that sparked the team's about turn last season.

McLaren's problems are nowhere near as acute as a year ago after building a car that languished towards the back of the field for the first half of the season. Hamilton played an instrumental role in rallying the troops, which resulted in a strong second half of the year that yielded two wins.

"Our pace in the race is not bad, not as bad as we first thought, but we still need to push really hard to close up to the Ferraris and Red Bulls," insisted Hamilton, who finished the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix in third place.

"If we keep pushing then I do feel we can close the gap to these guys, and hopefully be on the top of the podium.

"It's going to be difficult in such a short time frame to do that, so I need to go back now and give the team the biggest push.

"They are all pushing flat out as it is, but one extra person or two extra people can be more of a force.

"We need to get some more upgrades. It's that simple. We have them coming throughout the year, but we need to bring as many forward as possible to close the gap.

"We need to work out how to improve the low-speed downforce because that is really where they are taking the time away from us."