Alpine and McLaren are involved in a tight battle for P4 in F1's Constructors championship, and both teams hope their fight and the end of their 2022 season won't be impacted by engine penalties.
With six rounds to go, Alpine holds an 18-point lead over McLaren, the French squad outscoring its rival overall over the summer although it failed to put points on the board last time out at Monza, where McLaren bagged six points.
Although Alpine's A522 seems to hold a competitive advantage over the papaya squad's MCL36, the array of higher downforce upcoming tracks may help boost McLaren's performance.
However, with the team needing both its drivers to fight for points, it is at risk of falling victim to an engine-related grid drop due to Daniel Ricciardo's DNF at Monza caused by an oil leak.
The Aussie is now on the limit of all his engine elements, so any subsequent change will inevitably result in a grid demotion on race day.
But McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl is crossing his fingers that won't be the case.
"The goal is to end the season now without further penalties," said Seidl quoted by Motorsport.com.
"At Spa, I think pretty much all Mercedes cars rolled out the latest specification. And it was only Lando [Norris] who was penalised for a previous problem.
"We’ve seen over the past few years that obviously there are circuits like Spa or Monza where you expect to be able to overtake and where people take penalties, so it’s no surprise what happened at Spa and happened here [at Monza]."
In the opposite camp, Alpine opted to add at Monza several engine elements to Esteban Ocon's pool of hardware.
But sporting director Alan Permane insisted the move was strategic, adding that the team isn't planning any more engine changes.
"Fernando didn’t need a new engine at Monza and we thought it would be strategically advantageous for Esteban to have the new one engine for the rest of the season," said Permane.
"That’s all. It was a strategic change. It’s something that will help us in the upcoming races.
"Fernando is not short of engines, although I don’t rule out a power unit change for him, but at the moment we don’t have one more planned."
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
Mercedes is sitting on Formula 1’s most enviable problem – and Sky Sports F1 commentator…
George Russell's Canadian Grand Prix nightmare may have lasted only a few seconds, but Mercedes…
For much of the 2026 F1 season, Charles Leclerc has held the upper hand in…
Cadillac’s early days in Formula 1 have already delivered the usual mix of growing pains,…
On this day in 1966, the Indianapolis 500 was a race shrouded in confusion, ultimately…
Williams may be slipping down the Formula 1 order, but James Vowles is refusing to…