For flyaways, the team will move from one venue to another where a different garage set has already been assembled. In Europe, everything has to be packed down and carried to the next venue in the transporters. In the case of the Germany-Hungary leg of the calendar, that’s a 1000 km journey.  This calls for reinforcements, and many familiar faces from the McLaren race teams of old, now largely factory-based, are called upon to lend a hand.

The MCL34 sported a new rear wing in Hungary. Featuring a mid-wing, and delivering more overall downforce, it will doubtless reappear in Singapore, and perhaps Brazil. And given the tiny margins in the midfield, any slight improvement in pace brings a big dividend. Unsurprisingly, the race in the factory is just as fierce as the one on the track.

Rain on Friday meant the day's running was largely unrepresentative – which worked out well for us because Carlos missed much of the first session with a problem that required an engine change, and Lando missed most of the second with a hydraulic leak.

Although on the face of it we had better qualifying performance in France, Hungary felt like our best qualifying effort. A smoothly delivered seventh and eighth a very good effort, on a track that – at least on paper – should not have suited the MCL34.

While most of the field started on the Medium tyre, Carlos and Lando set off from the grid on Softs. It meant they had to conserve rubber and manage the gap to the midfield Medium-shod runners to ensure they didn’t lose out to those likely to go much longer. It led to the strange situation of the race engineers calling out lap times of cars some way down the field, rather than those immediately ahead or behind.

Margins in F1 are small. Lando lost four seconds in the pitstop. It cost him two places immediately and three overall. The problem was a broken shuttle in the left-rear wheel gun. Wheel guns are high-tech pieces of kit. They are calibrated to unscrew and then tighten a wheel nut without the gunner having to thumb a selector. One failed on Lando’s stop, the crew responded rapidly – but the damage was done.

A lot had to happen in the 60 seconds following Lando's pitstop on Sunday. Chief Mechanic Kari Lammenranta had to diagnose the fault and make sure it wouldn’t reoccur, and team manager Paul James needed confirmation from Kari that the pitbox was ready for Carlos, while getting the crew into the right frame of mind to perform. "Nice and steady with this one guys, Carlos has time, don’t rush it," was his calmly delivered instruction.

Two fifth place finishes in as many races for Carlos, but the contrast between the two is stark. Last week, he was feeling a little glass-half-empty. This week, quite the opposite. The race had no safety cars, and Carlos ran the standard strategy. He finished two places better than best of the rest – and his post-race crooning of ‘smooth operator’, while painful to race engineer Tom Stallard’s ears, is very amusing for the rest of the garage.   

The summer shutdown is almost upon us and those in the garage are ready for a well-deserved break. Team Principal Andreas Seidl issued stern instructions after the race that everyone is to relax and be prepared to come back stronger for the second half of the year. The fact he issued these instructions while eating a Cornetto seemed particularly apt.