The Woking-based outfit has been one of the most aggressive in terms of bringing updates to its car this season, as it pushes to get itself back into the podium contention.

And although most teams have now switched off developing their current cars so they can focus exclusively on next year's new rules, McLaren says updates to its MP4-31 will continue for a while.

Racing director Eric Boullier said: "There will still be some car developments after the shutdown.

"Every development we are doing is obviously applicable to next year's car, so we focus on this and on next year's car."

As well as improvements to the McLaren chassis, Honda is also expected to bring developments to its engine for the second half of the campaign too.

While mindful that it needs to begin work on making a step forward for 2017, it is likely to bring a step for the Belgian Grand Prix as it still has engine tokens left to use.

F1 engine chief Yusuke Hasegawa said: "We will not give up with this year. But we have to start work on 2017, so when we have to change our resource to 2017 is a very difficult decision."