Why McLaren’s F1 2026 priorities factor in reduced edge over Red Bull and Mercedes
Andrea Stella has offered some theories as to why McLaren no longer appears to have a clear edge over its rivals.
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has theorised why his team no longer appears to have a clear advantage over its rivals, having been the standard-setter throughout the first half of the season.
McLaren secured its second consecutive Constructors’ Championship at the Singapore Grand Prix, as Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri’s respective third and fourth places put the Woking-based team out of reach of Mercedes, Ferrari, and Red Bull with six race weekends remaining.
Andrea Stella: McLaren stopped developing some time ago
It’s not all that long ago that McLaren was scoring uncontested 1-2 finishes, results which helped the team build a massive points lead that has now proven insurmountable for its rivals.
But, as the championship begins to enter its final stages, it’s evident that McLaren no longer has a commanding advantage over its rivals, with Red Bull and Mercedes, in particular, appearing very competitive.
Red Bull scored two wins in a row in Monza and Baku, with Verstappen taking second places at Zandvoort and Singapore – holding off Norris at Marina Bay where George Russell took pole position and a comfortable race win for the Silver Arrows.
A key factor in McLaren’s apparent ‘slipping back’ is likely to be the team’s complete focus on the F1 2026 rule changes, with the sport introducing revolutionary regulations that mean very little of the remaining lessons from the current regulations will have any carryover.
McLaren’s static MCL39, therefore, is being out-developed by rival teams such as Red Bull, believes Stella, but there are more factors than this as to why the season is becoming increasingly competitive heading into the final quarter.
“I think it’s a combination of both,” he told the media in Singapore, when asked whether the performance in Singapore was down to a general trend or specific to Marina Bay’s characteristics.
“I think there’s a trend whereby we have stopped the development of the car now for quite some time, because we’ve been focusing entirely on 2026.
“There were, if anything, little parts that we took to Monza, but otherwise we were just focusing on ’26 for a long time, while we have seen that some competitors kept taking some new upgrades to the trackside.
“Red Bull certainly is one of those. They had a new front wing [in Singapore], a new floor in Monza, and we needed to wait a few races at low downforce, like Monza and Baku, and here, to identify that there’s also a pattern from a technical point of view.
“One is the pattern of braking with bumps and kerbs, and the other is with the low downforce, like we saw in Monza and Baku. So there are a few factors compounding.
“I think there’s certainly the fact that we haven’t developed the car for a long time, and some track characteristics.
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“Having said that, I would expect that Austin will still be a bit of a struggle for us, because the corners are tight in many braking areas.
“Our tracks still remain at the likes of Brazil, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi.
“Perhaps earlier on in the season, when we had a bit more advantage, we could cope better with some other circuits, but some competitors kept developing their car, or understood better how to use their car, so now the field has become even more competitive.”
Red Bull and Mercedes both showed up with small updates for the Singapore Grand Prix, coinciding with both teams managing to finish with a car ahead of McLaren after a Mercedes/Red Bull front row.
The RB21 was fitted with two aerodynamic tweaks for Singapore, and team boss Laurent Mekies dismissed any concerns that developments this late into the season could leave it on the back foot for next year.
“From a Red Bull perspective, and without looking at the other guys around, I think it was, and is, very important that we get to understand if the project has more performance,” he said.
“It’s important that we get to the bottom of it, because we will elaborate next year’s project, even if the regulations are completely different, with the same tools, with the same methodology.
“It’s very important that we validate, with this year’s car, that our way of looking at the data is correct, our way of developing the car is correct, that produces that level of performance – that will give us confidence in the winter for next year’s car.
“So of course, it comes at a cost, undoubtedly, to the ’26 project. But we feel it’s the right trade-off for us, without judging what the other guys are doing.”
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