Two of McLaren’s midfield rivals are hoping a surge of updates before the summer break can bring them level with the fourth-placed team.
Alfa Romeo and Racing Point have both had relatively quiet spells in terms of results in the Swiss outfit achieving their first double top 10 of the season in Austria, while the ex-Force India team hasn’t scored since Canada.
But in Alfa’s case, there has been an upward trajectory which team boss Fred Vasseur is keen to continue.
“I think we did a good step forward over the last two or three races,” he claimed via PlanetF1.
“We have to improve a little bit the pace to be able to fight with the McLarens, which will be the next target.
“If you look at the last few races they were ahead, but we have good updates in the pipeline. For sure we need to do a step forward to fight with them in the races.
“We have a package for Silverstone and some other updates for Germany and Hungary, but we have to be realistic, everybody is pushing like hell, and they will also bring something.”
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As for Racing Point, while they may have a home race to come this weekend, their focus is on a car overhaul expected for Hockenheim and longer-term almost a year after Lawrence Stroll’s takeover.
“The car has got some balance issues that we started the season with and really I think that’s a bit of a legacy of where we finished off last year and where we were as a company, position-wise,” tech chief Andrew Green explained.
“We’ve got a lot of changes coming ahead in the next few races and beyond, after the break as well.”
“We’ve got to make more progress than our competition – which is hard to do, but the team’s future is incredibly bright. We’re looking a long way forward with the team now, that we’ve never been able to do before.
“So the fact that we’re in a bit of a tight scrap at the moment is not distracting now from things that we’re looking at much further down the road.”
For McLaren’s Lando Norris, however, his aim is on trying to trouble Red Bull having beaten Pierre Gasly in the past two races.
“On average we’re getting a little bit closer,” he said via F1i.com. “I’m pretty sure on race pace we’re a long way away from them. In qualifying, maybe we can have some attempts.
“They’re still the much quicker car, maybe not altogether the best car, but their car is much quicker than ours in the corners.
“In the race, they have better tyre wear and their race pace is better.”
