McLaren has confirmed upgrades to the MCL40 will be delayed as it looks to understand its troubled start to the 2026 Formula 1 season.
Dominating the Australian Grand Prix in 2025, McLaren endured a challenging race in Melbourne, the MCL40 failing to perform at the sharp end of the field.
Oscar Piastri crashed out on his way to the grid, his race day ending with an unexpected surge of power from his Mercedes power unit.
Teammate Lando Norris, meanwhile, finished back in a distant fifth, 51 seconds behind race winner George Russell, his MCL40 unable to keep up with the leading pace.
Technical Director for Applied Technology, Neil Houldley gave an honest debrief of McLaren’s struggles at Albert Park, highlighting the data gathered.
“We have gathered and analysed lots of data across multiple areas since the MCL40 first took to the track in January’s shakedown, and last weekend’s first race of the season in Australia provided the team with further valuable information as we continue our journey of development and learning under the new regulations,” he said.
“To see the car in various scenarios under racing conditions for the first time was a good opportunity for new knowledge progression, and we understand that there is still a lot to do as we continue to work hard to further exploit the performance of the power unit while also putting additional focus on areas such as improving grip in corners.
“The next few races will continue to see this focus in place as we look to extract the maximum performance from our current configuration.
Delays before return to competitiveness for McLaren?
Houdley tellingly then confirmed that no upgrades will be applied to the MCL40 until more understanding of the car has improved.
“There is a lot of effort by the team, both trackside and in Woking, to develop the car, but we are aware that this will take a few more races to be in a position to bring any major upgrades to the track.
“Therefore, going into this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix, we have collectively taken all of our learnings from Melbourne and regrouped as a team together with our HPP partners to make sure that we deliver as much performance as possible to put the team in a strong competitive position for opportunities in both Saturday’s Sprint race and Sunday’s grand prix.”
That McLaren is unwilling to bring upgrades hints that the team does not fully understand its 2026 challenger, a stark contrast to 2023.
That year, the MCL60 was launched with the caveat that a raft of upgrades was planned to address a known deficit relative to the rest of the field.
The impact of these upgrades was immediate, as kicked off a period of resurgence for the team. Three years on, the outlook for rescuing 2026 is less clear.
READ MORE: McLaren stars handed drives in Formula E rookie test
Discussion about this post