McLaren has traced the race-ending reliability issue on Lando Norris' car at the Dutch Grand Prix to a problem on the chassis side rather than a failure of the car's Mercedes engine.
Norris retired seven laps from the finish at Zandvoort when smoke emerged in his cockpit and from the rear of his McLaren.
The retirement dealt a significant blow to the title hopes of Norris, who had been running in second place behind teammate Oscar Piastri prior to the failure.
The problem was initially diagnosed as an oil-leak, but it was not immediately clear if it had stemmed from the Mercedes-supplied power unit or part of the car designed and built by McLaren.
In a press release statement on Sunday evening, team principal Andrea Stella provided an update on the problem ahead of next week's Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
"We've identified an issue on the chassis side, and we will do a full review before we go racing again in Monza," Stella said. "This is the first technical problem for the team after a long run of faultless reliability."
Norris now trails Piastri by 34 points in the drivers' standings with nine races left this season.
Speaking before the problem had been fully diagnosed, Stella expressed his regret over the issue impacting the title battle between his two drivers.
"Reliability has been a strong point at McLaren for a long time, we have had today what looks like a technical reliability problem, which is always disappointing," he said.
"But I would say that it is even more inconvenient because it affects a situation in which we as a team, wanted to stay as neutral as possible in what is the drivers individual quest in the driver's championship. So it is not ideal."
However, the McLaren team principal believes Norris will use Sunday's setback as motivation for the rest of the season.
"If anything we may see even a better version of Lando because now is the time to extract if there is anything more, even more out of his potential," McLaren team principal Stella said.
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"So I look forward to seeing Lando in the coming races, I'm sure this is going to be a great spectacle for Formula 1 and if anything it's going to make the competition with Oscar even more interesting.
"We know that his talent is immense and I'm sure this situation in the championship will give him extra motivation to try and extract it."
Although Piastri's 34-point gap provides a points buffer that would allow him to retire from the next round, see Norris take victory and still lead the standings by nine points, the Australian said the margin was still too small for him to feel comfortable.
"There's still a long way to go," he said. "I need to keep pushing and trying to win races still. I wouldn't say it's a very comfortable margin.
"As we saw today, it can change with one DNF very, very quickly. So this far out from the end of the year, it's not a comfortable gap."