Following McLaren's first double top 10 finish in Hungary, Fernando Alonso is anticipating a "difficult challenge" for the Woking-based team as the Formula 1 season resumes after the summer break at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Recent signs have been more positive for McLaren with engine partner Honda promising as many as three further upgrades before the end of the season and the recently introduced Spec 3 power unit has proven more reliable too.
Around the tight and twisty confines of the Hungaroring, that improvement allowed the MCL32 chassis to perform at its best but on the long straights at Spa-Francorchamps, it'll back to business as usual for the Spaniard as he looks to capitalise on any opportunity that comes his way.
“As the season goes on we’re getting stronger and stronger, and I hope the second half of the year will bring us some more points-earning finishes,” the double world champion commented initially.
“This race [in Belgium] is a difficult challenge for the whole team, the engineers and the mechanics, as you’re on the throttle for almost three-quarters of the lap, which makes it’s a tough circuit for both the car and the driver.
“We know we’ll have to work hard to get any kind of result there, but it’s a long lap and there are plenty of overtaking opportunities, so we’ll keep pushing to get everything we can from the weekend.”
While on-track performance has been improving, off-track it has been a tricky month or so for Honda with Sauber cancelling a 2018 engine deal and talks with Red Bull over possibly supplying Toro Rosso also falling through.
The early season problems with their power unit likely played a significant role in the decision for those teams to walk away but now the head of their F1 operation, Yusuke Hasegawa has revealed changes are being to further improve development and move away from what caused so many issues to unexpectedly arise this year.
"We're not too much insisting on mono-cylinder [dyno] development, we can check factors or elements or many concepts with the mono-cylinder [block], but we now understand we need to check with the V6 to finalise our specification," he told Autosport.
The main problem the Japanese manufacturer has faced is with the MGU-H which was claimed could only last two races maximum and even then that was if nothing went wrong in the mean time.
"The MGU-H failure took a very long time to solve," Hasegawa admitted. "We had many small issues in the engine - and that area is difficult to understand on the dyno.
"We are about to solve that [MGU-H] issue, we just need to confirm on the circuit, but the MGU-H specification we have introduced includes solutions for the problem so I believe it's OK."
