Seidl: McLaren F1 upgrades at Hungarian GP helped car 'weakness'

McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl says the Formula 1's team upgrades, which included a new high-downforce rear wing, has helped improve one of its car's 'weaknesses'

The team had gone into the Hungarian Grand Prix expecting to struggle due to the MCL34's weakness in low-speed corners, but McLaren was on for a five-six finish before a pitstop problem for Lando Norris.

Carlos Sainz Jr secured fifth for McLaren - matching its season-best result of fifth - and Norris also scored points by recovering to ninth.

Seidl says the Hungary result at a track that emphasises low-speed corners suggests it can be more confident at similar tracks.

He said: "On a track with a lot of low-speed corners, where we had definitely a weakness on the car, to see that we could now cure some of the issues with the updates we are bringing, and understanding the car better, and better, and how to use it, it is obviously great to have clearly been the fourth-quickest car.

"It is now a big boost for us going into the break, and also for the second half of the season because we have some tracks coming up with low-speed sections and so on.

"That is very, very encouraging."

Sainz played down the idea of McLaren's upgrades helping to cure its weakness as he believes other factors played a part.

"Maybe the Hungaroring has become a medium speed track with Formula 1 cars because it feels fast out there and that suits us a bit better than what we anticipated," said Sainz.

"And this kind of black Tarmac, as we saw in Austria and Paul Ricard, new surfaces help our performance.

"This weekend we were decently surprised, but still we were lapped so that's another thing that we need to add to that, so we still have a lot of work to do."