{"id":458167,"date":"2026-02-06T19:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T19:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/458167\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T19:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T19:09:10","slug":"mclarens-biggest-gains-will-come-from-exploiting-the-new-power-unit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/458167\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren\u2019s biggest gains will come from \u201cexploiting\u201d the new power unit"},"content":{"rendered":"

McLaren<\/a> team principal Andrea Stella says that the Barcelona shakedown has proven that the MCL40’s largest improvements will come from learning how to exploit the power unit as well as the active aero introduced this year.<\/p>\n

The Woking outfit approached its testing at the\u00a0Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya with the understanding that it would be its first sense of reality of a new set of regulations. Now, after a total of 291 laps driven by its drivers Lando Norris<\/a> and Oscar Piastri<\/a>, the Papaya-coloured team has a strong baseline, albeit one it will need to rapidly develop.<\/p>\n

But Stella isn’t afraid of the fact that overall performance will be dictated by how quickly teams and drivers can understand the “toolbox” of features these new regulations offer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It was\u00a0a very useful\u00a0three days,” he said in an interview within the team<\/a>. “We were able to collect a large amount of data and begin to understand how the\u00a0new generation of\u00a0single-seaters\u00a0behave\u00a0in reality on\u00a0track and no longer\u00a0solely on simulators.”<\/p>\n

The Italian was keen to add that the car reacted how they expected and in line with their simulations. This comes maybe as a breath of fresh air after the correlation issues experienced by several teams during the ground effect era.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“What we saw on the track was in line with expectations and, above all, with the simulations. What emerged clearly is that the learning curve is very steep for everyone \u2013 drivers and teams alike \u2013 which means that every lap teaches you something useful in terms of performance.<\/p>\n

\"Oscar <\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri, McLaren<\/p>\n

Photo by: McLaren<\/p>\n

“After all, it was natural to expect such a scenario, considering that these cars are totally new, from A to Z. We know that the MCL40 is a good starting point, but now we have to work hard to develop it and, through our knowledge of the car, improve the overall performance of the package, both for the immediate future and to further define the development lines during the season.”<\/p>\n

He continued: “Although these are very preliminary indications, I believe that one of the areas where there is great room for improvement is in exploiting the new power unit and all the options available to the driver.<\/p>\n

“There is also a lot of potential to be extracted in terms of managing the variable aerodynamic configuration, referring to the alternation between\u00a0Corner and Straight Mode.<\/p>\n

“That said, it is obvious that this generation of single-seaters is at a very early stage of development: four years ago, when ground effect cars made their debut, we were in different circumstances because the power unit and tyres were essentially unchanged from the previous year.”<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says that the Barcelona shakedown has proven that the MCL40’s largest improvements will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[187581,49,48,578,576,577,590,82,4962,185911,185753],"class_list":{"0":"post-458167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-andrea-stella-mclarenu2019s-biggest-gains-will-come-from-u201cexploitingu201d-the-new-power-unit","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-formula1","14":"tag-mclaren","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-trendingteam","17":"tag-williams-grove-speedway","18":"tag-williams-launch"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}