{"id":636492,"date":"2026-04-29T13:41:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T13:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/636492\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T13:41:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T13:41:16","slug":"can-mclarens-entirely-new-f1-car-be-a-mercedes-beater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/636492\/","title":{"rendered":"Can McLaren’s ‘entirely new’ F1 car be a Mercedes beater?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formula 1<\/a> returns from its longest break of the season with more questions than answers.<\/p>\n

Five weeks have passed since Kimi Antonelli<\/a> took victory in Japan, and in that time the sport has been in near-constant debate about the regulations that govern it, with the FIA responding to widespread criticism by introducing a package of power unit tweaks designed to reduce the energy management that has defined, and in many eyes diminished, the opening three rounds.<\/p>\n

Miami is the first chance to find out whether it has worked.<\/p>\n

The Miami International Autodrome<\/a> has not been shy of drama in its short history, and this weekend carries extra weight beyond the usual sprint format.<\/p>\n

Every team arrives with significant upgrades \u2014 some, like McLaren<\/a>, billing its car as entirely new \u2014 after an unusually long stretch at the factory.<\/p>\n

The pecking order that emerged in Australia, China and Japan may look rather different by Sunday evening.<\/p>\n

At the top of the standings, Mercedes<\/a> arrives as the team to beat: Antonelli leading team-mate George Russell<\/a> by nine points in a championship that so far has belonged entirely to the Silver Arrows<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The question is not whether it remains favourite, it does, but whether the combination of new regulations, new car concepts and a circuit that has historically favoured its closest rivals is finally enough to bring the rest of the field into the conversation.<\/p>\n

What to watch out for: McLaren\u2019s reset<\/p>\n

\"Lando<\/p>\n

McLaren plans big upgrades for the next races<\/p>\n

\n McLaren\n <\/p>\n

McLaren\u2019s bid for a third consecutive constructors\u2019 championship had a wobbly start when the team found itself trailing the leaders; its closest competitor in the title race is currently fourth-placed Haas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Miami brings the chance of a reset. It\u2019s something of a talismanic track for the team after it arrived there in 2024 with an upgraded car which launched it into championship contention by way of Lando Norris<\/a>\u2018s maiden grand prix victory. Last year was a papaya whitewash as the drivers finished 1-2 in both the sprint and GP.<\/p>\n

To aid its chances of closing that gap, McLaren has spoken of bringing an \u201centirely new\u201d car over the course of the next two races, and believes it is now getting the maximum out of its Mercedes HPP customer engine, which it was struggling to do \u2013 in contrast with the championship-leading factory team \u2013 at the start of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have made a significant step forward compared to where we were in Australia,\u201d said team principal Andrea Stella. \u201cWhile at the start of the season, a deficit might have existed for the natural consequence of being a customer team\u2026 I think we have filled this gap, and we should have all the tools that are required to extract the most out of the power unit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the mood within the team is one of cautious realism rather than optimism. \u201cI would love to say yes, but I don\u2019t really think so,\u201d said Piastri when asked whether McLaren could challenge Mercedes this weekend. \u201cWe\u2019re clearly still a fair way behind on downforce and performance from the chassis. Our biggest deficit in Japan was, not that we were lacking time from the power unit, or how we exploited it \u2013 it was that our car wasn\u2019t as good as theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team is hopeful that having a month without travelling to races has helped it deliver significant upgrades, but Stella conceded that others will be in the same position.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was always the idea to deliver sort of a completely new car, especially from an aerodynamic upgrades point of view for the North American races. Obviously, the fact that the calendar has been changed helped, like I\u2019m sure helped all the other teams, [to] work more streamlined towards upgrading the car, rather than being busy with racing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross Miami and Canada, we will see an entirely new MCL40. I would like to stress that this is what I would expect of most of our competitors. So not necessarily is going to be a shift in the pecking order. It will be effectively just a check who has been able to add more performance within the same time frame. And we also have some performance to recover if we look at Mercedes and to some extent Ferrari<\/a> as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully we should be able to see a slightly more competitive MCL40 in Miami and then in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hope within the team is that it can come close enough to take advantage of the internal battle for dominance within Mercedes between George Russell<\/a> and Kimi Antonelli \u2013 much like Max Verstappen<\/a> fought the McLarens last season in a car that didn\u2019t quite have the same pace.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more they can battle, the better it\u2019s been,\u201d said Norris. \u201cWe certainly hope that we can catch up, and the more points they can take away from each other the better \u2013 the same as kind of like us last year and Max in a fight. Hopefully it can be a similar story, but the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, that\u2019s likely to mean that McLaren would have to put the weight of the team behind a single driver.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s under pressure: The rules<\/p>\n

\"Damaged<\/p>\n

Bearman\u2019s crash left the FIA with no option but to act<\/p>\n

\n Getty\n <\/p>\n

Three races in, the verdict from drivers, teams and fans about the 2026 technical rules has been pointed enough that the FIA has already felt compelled to act.<\/p>\n

The specific complaints are well-documented by now.<\/p>\n

Extreme energy management has forced drivers to lift and coast to a degree that has been visible, jarring and, in the eyes of many, antithetical to what a grand prix should look like.<\/p>\n

Cars have appeared to slow on the straights mid-session, drivers managing deployment windows rather than racing. The criticism, in conjunction with Oliver Bearman<\/a>\u2018s crash at Suzuka<\/a>, reached a level that made it difficult to dismiss as simple resistance to change.<\/p>\n

So the FIA has responded. A package of regulation tweaks has been introduced ahead of Miami, designed to reduce the most counterintuitive driving behaviours and allow for more sustained flat-out running.<\/p>\n

The changes have been cautiously welcomed, but most people noted that more meaningful gains may ultimately require hardware solutions rather than regulatory adjustments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1 returns from its longest break of the season with more questions than answers. Five weeks have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[237862,49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-636492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-2026-miami-gp","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636492","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=636492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}