Some teams on the grid this season have ceased their development on the 2021 cars as they look to producing their 2022 contenders under next years strict regulations.
McLaren however, seems to be working away on the MCL35M this season, and brought new upgrades to the bargeboard of the car this weekend.
Andrea Stella, the team’s Racing Director said; “We do have some upgrades here in Hungary and they will not be the last upgrades of the season simply because when you release upgrades then it takes some time to produce them and learn trackside.
“So there will be a few more.”
The further changes they plan to make this season with rather be simple refinements rather than more substantial changes, he added.
“In Formula 1 you always keep acquiring some information once you test the parts trackside because you never get a perfect correlation with the development tools.”
Friday practice is over. 🏁
The FP2 session ends with Lando in P9 and Daniel in P13.
Let’s keep working, team. 👍#HungarianGP 🇭🇺 pic.twitter.com/gUvyRhzEkR
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) July 30, 2021
Speaking after Free Practice today, Andreas Seidl confirmed that both Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo were running upgrades on the McLaren during Free Practice and said he is happy with their Friday performance.
“So far we’ve had a decent Friday afternoon,” he told Sky Sports F1.
“It’s a complex upgrade (on the bargeboard) but we managed to get it to the car before the summer break.
“It was important this morning that we could test the upgrade and luckily everything worked as expected. We’re now running both cars with the upgrade specification.
“Form is always relative on a Friday. I’d say we are where we expected to be on a Friday – we are simply focusing on our preparation for qualifying and the race on Sunday.
“I can only judge our own programme and everything went to plan so far.”
Norris finished out the afternoon in ninth while Ricciardo was 13th fastest.