McLaren boss Andrea Stella believes its MCL40 F1 car is still an “immature project”, owing to the hangover from its 2025 title push.
The defending champions started the 2026 season in a fight for third-best with Red Bull and well behind Mercedes and Ferrari, with the car for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri struggling in the first half of the season with both the chassis and in understanding and extracting the most from the all-new power units.
An upgrade in Hungary brought Norris back into contention, with the defending champion scoring the first of back-to-back wins, following this up with the win in the final Dutch Grand Prix, both from pole position, with a third pole added at the Spanish GP.
McLaren currently finds itself in third in the stadings between Mercedes in second in the table, 52 points behind, whilst being 76 clear of Red Bull in fourth.
Detailing the troubles, Stella explained how, given the push right to the end for the 2025 titles, the team was going to be caught in a “battle of development” against the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari, which had turned off the development taps earlier after falling out of title contention.
“I think this year’s car is still, let me say, an immature project,” Stella told media, including RacingNews365.
“It didn’t start at the level we wanted the car to be at from a competitiveness point of view, but also in terms of aerodynamic maturity.
“I have said a few times that we came from a season in 2025 in which we needed to spend the energy on winning the double championship, so it is fair enough; it was going to be a battle of development.
“But in this development, we haven’t nailed all the areas yet, so the cars much more naturally peforms well in high-speed, fast-flowing sections, but struggles to be consistent when you brake and carry the speed into low-speed [corners], and you have to hit a kerb.
“It is very unpredictable, so for Oscar and Lando, we definitely did not make life easy at all.”
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Stella points to McLaren evidence
Giving examples, Stella pointed to McLaren’s two grand prix victories and struggles in certain corners for the MCL40 machine, whilst he also pointed to Norris’s recent surprise Spanish GP pole position after a weekend of struggle.
“Like, even in Zandvoort, when we had the best car, in Turns 11 and 12, we were a midfield car, and probably not even average midfield,” Stella pointed out.
“In a similar way, in Hungary, in the chicane, and in [Madrid], there are many of these type of corners.
“In FP1, we saw the difficulties, and what I appreciated is the work of the team, in that we gave ourselves a clear objective, and we started to nail several areas of the set-up that ultimately compounded and allowed the performance of the car to go to another level.
“Still, I think the exploitation of the car’s potential for pole position was pretty unique.”