McLaren's engineering technical director, Neil Houldey believes that Ferrari may have been too enthusiastic with its upgrade programme.

While Toto Wolff has suggested that the Italian team's upgrades may have brought it close to compromising the budget cap, Houldey is of the opinion that it may have been a question of too much, too soon.

"I think we've done a pretty good job of bringing a lot of upgrades that have added performance to the car," he said. "But when you look around at our competitors, there are teams like Ferrari, who've done a fantastic job this year to just drive that development forward."

Asked if he feels the Maranello outfit has been 'front-loading' its development budget, and whether this might benefit McLaren as the season develops, Houldey replied: "Well, I think we've been front-loading what we've got available.

"I'd say from a volume stand it does look like Ferrari have managed to do a lot," he admitted, "and it's something for us to look at and understand how they were able to achieve that. Because you look at that from an aerodynamic development point of view, you look at it from a manufacturing point of view.

"Actually, how they turned around this stuff so quickly, it's an inspiration for us to look at and say: 'Come on, we did well in 2024. We did well in 2025. But actually, how do we do even better in 2026 and moving forward into 2027?'

"These things, as with anything in F1, if you're not moving forward and finding ways of doing things faster and more effectively, then you're effectively going backwards yourself. So, I think it was a good lesson for us to see what other people are capable of and how we do that."