McLaren outperformed its expectations last weekend in Hungary, but team boss Andrea Stella remains guarded given the MCL60's ingrained weakness: its pace in low-speed corners.
McLaren claimed at the Hungaroring its second podium in succession, courtesy of another flawless drive by Lando Norris, complimented by a solid display by teammate Oscar Piastri who enjoyed his second top-five finish in succession.
The productive result offered another confirmation of the Woking-based outfit's remarkable transition from midfield contender to front-runner in the wake of the implementation of the team's multi-stage upgrade plan initiated in Austria.
Moreover, McLaren's solid haul of points was achieved at a venue where it feared it would struggle given the Hungaroring's twisty layout and collection of low-speed corners.
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"We certainly come out of this event encouraged that we have made progress in medium speed," he said. "That’s what we certainly see from comparison with our competition.
"The other important confirmation is that we made progress in terms of tyre degradation, and we see that having improved the car actually kind of brings improvement to how you use tyres at the same time.
"It is kind of common knowledge — we know that having good load helps tyres — but it was good to confirm it once again. This makes us certainly a bit more optimistic for the future than we were after Silverstone."
However, it didn't escape McLaren's engineers in Hungary that their car's pace in the circuit's low-speed corners required further attention.
"We also see that we do lose time in the three low-speed corners — in (Turn 1), in the chicane and in (Turn 12) — confirming there is still work to do in low speed," commented Stella.
While F1 moves on this week to Spa, one of the fastest tracks on the calendar, the Belgian venue also features a trio of corners that may potentially weigh on McLaren's lap times according to Stella.
"Even if Spa is normally mentioned as one of the higher speed tracks, in reality the highest speed corner, which is (Turn 10), is flat in qualifying," he said.
"There’s a lot of lap time in (Turn 1), which is 80kph, in (Turn 8), which is 100kph, and in the last chicane, which is 90kph.
"I don’t want to repeat myself, but I go with some care, because in these three corners, at the moment, we see that we lose time. That’s where we are."
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