MotorLat was present at McLaren’s pre-Belgian GP press conference with Andreas Seidl. The German spoke on his media duties on how the challenging fight the Woking-based team is facing with Ferrari in the constructors’ championship is looking after the summer recess.

“I think we just need to keep going on what we have been doing the first part of the season.  Just focusing on ourselves. Extracting the maximum of the package we have each race, scoring points, and have clear weekends.”

“Together with Lando and Daniel we have everything in our hands.”

The McLaren’s Team Principal was asked whether Daniel Ricciardo’s latest performances have influenced his future with the team: “We have a long-term commitment with Daniel. The speed and the experience he is having with us, we are working out in order to make the next steps towards the next years,” Seidl assured.

After it was confirmed earlier on the week that crash damage has Ferrari and Red Bull facing grid penalties when the decision of using their fourth engine of the year comes, Max Verstappen raised his voice and said that "If someone crashes into you, and you suffer damage from that and you need to take an extra engine because of the regulations, I don't think that's how it should be."

Seidl talked to the media on how the revolution the Dutch driver is suggesting on the regulations regarding this matter could be extremely complicated: "We always ended up with the same result that it's simply difficult to handle and work out what is genuine crash damage and what is not."

"Therefore, I think from our point of view, we're happy with how the regulations are. It's part of the game that we are in.”

"In the end, it’s tough luck," Seidl said.

This topic was added to the polemics involving Ferrari’s Team Principal Mattia Binotto’s idea of having rival teams paying for damage costs following an incident. After various grid personalities have said that such a proposal would end in more prejudicial than beneficial terms, Seidl shared his thoughts and alleged: “The same is valid from my point of view on the budget cap topic. The noise we're getting, it's coming from the usual protagonists and suspects.”

"In the end, I think we had discussions at length when the cost cap was introduced, and never heard any one of these guys talk about the budget cap which is a non-crash budget cap, for example.”

"That's simply part of the challenge we are in. We need to calculate with a certain amount of budget when you start the year for either side, for reliability issues or crashes, and then you have to manage that going through the year."

In declarations pre-Hungarian GP, McLaren stated that the upgrades coming to the MCL35M would not be the last ones, now Seidl assures this year’s challenger will be soon facing the end of its renovations.

“Definitely we’re nearing the final tweaks on the car. Obviously, we’ll be trying to exploit the more out of the package as it is, and working on the simulator together with the drivers,” the McLaren Team Principal concluded.