McLaren have been in fine form having won back-to-back races with Lando Norris on either side of the Formula 1 summer break.
The Woking-based team had endured a slow start to F1’s latest era compared to its rivals.
While the MCL40 did show some promising pace early in the season, at Suzuka for instance, the team were openly struggling to extract the maximum from its package.
That seemingly changed at the Hungaroring, right before the summer break.
The Hungarian GP was probably the first round of 2026 where McLaren were ahead of both Mercedes and Ferrari in terms of pure pace.
Norris followed that up with a commanding win over championship leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli at Zandvoort, last week.
Team Principal Andrea Stella explained how the key to the team clawing back its deficit has been a concerted development push back at base.
“The item that I can recall not having a straight introduction to racing was probably the front wing, where we had a couple of modifications to make sure that the intent was met as we introduced the front wing,” he said.
“Otherwise, I think the rate of success of our upgrades has been relatively high, in continuation with what we had in the previous seasons, in terms of delivering upgrades from development to the full-scale car.
“However, I’ve always also said that, I think with this regulation, this seems to be more of a general [trend] I think for everyone. It’s slightly easier to find confirmation of their expectation for development with what they deliver on the car in terms of upgrades.”
McLaren still has “work to do” to catch up to its F1 rivals
McLaren had brought a substantial upgrade package to Hungary. Norris thrived strapped into the cockpit of the MCL40 – taking the race win away from his team-mate Oscar Piastri.
At Zandvoort, the team bolted on further refinements to its car. But Stella revealed that the car’s pace at Netherlands was more to do with an optimised concept for the inherent track layout.
Heading into a series of more conventional circuits, the Italian highlighted how the team still had to get on top of the 2026 Pirelli tyres.
“Some aspects of the aerodynamic development are slightly easier than they were last year, especially towards the maturity of the regulations last year, where it made it really difficult to improve the car,” Stella added.
“So, I’m happy with the developments here. The amount of upgrades [in Zandvoort] was relatively smaller than what we had in Hungary.
“It was, to some extent, almost track-specific, because we had a higher downforce rear wing.
“This is not sufficient to have a lead/ While we are very competitive in qualifying, we saw that in the Sprint race, for instance, there’s still some work to do in terms of tyre degradation and tyre condition.”
Up next for McLaren is the Temple of Speed; Monza. Should Norris carry his winning streak to the Italian GP, he stands on the cusp of winning three consecutive F1 races for the first time in his career.
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