McLaren ‘much more prepared’ with Mercedes PU ahead of Miami rule tweaks
McLaren boss Andrea Stella has revealed his team has made a 'significant step' as F1 heads to Miami.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believes the team has closed the early-season knowledge gap with Mercedes in understanding how best to exploit its power unit.
That shortfall, initially acknowledged at the Australian Grand Prix, stemmed from McLaren’s status as a customer team working with Mercedes High Performance Powertrains.
Andrea Stella: McLaren has closed Mercedes knowledge gap
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McLaren has steadily improved in the first three rounds of the season, and Stella added his belief that, such will be the rate of development in 2026, an almost “completely new” MCL40 will take to the track across the Miami and Canadian Grands Prix in May.
Having previously said that one area of performance McLaren needed to utilise was its new power unit, the team has worked to make the most of how to distribute its power over the course of a lap.
The Miami Grand Prix will also see regulation tweaks brought to the circuit for the first time, with a decrease in maximum energy recharging through a lap alongside a cap on power use in ‘Boost Mode’ among the changes, as well as an increase in super clipping capacity to help recharge a car’s battery more quickly.
With teams able to run simulations on how these changes may impact the cars, Stella confirmed McLaren has worked in partnership with Mercedes’ power unit division to gain the tools required, but acknowledged its early deficit came as a “natural consequence” of its customer status.
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However, with several rounds completed, the McLaren team principal believes the team has “filled this gap” it previously held on engine understanding.
“In Miami, like we have seen before from the simulations, to a certain extent, we will be able to predict through simulations the behaviour of the power unit, once we apply the new regulations,” Stella explained to PlanetF1.com and others.
“At the same time, offline simulations, or even running these regulations at the simulator doesn’t mean that you can cover all the possible scenarios.
“So, you have to definitely be quite forward-thinking in terms of considering everything that can happen and make sure that the way in which you exploit the power unit is the most optimal. But I’m quite confident that, to a certain extent, we can achieve this with the current simulation.
“I can also confirm that in terms of working together with HPP, and even in terms of developing the simulation tools, together with HPP, we have made a significant step forward compared to where we were in Australia. So I think as a team, we are now much more prepared.
“While at the start of the season, a deficit might have existed for the natural consequence of being a customer team when the programming was so pushed, also from a power unit point of view – and that was okay, and that was something that we were ready to accept, and we processed very constructively together with HPP.
“But now, later in the season, 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.”
McLaren earned its first podium of the season at the Japanese Grand Prix last time out, through a second place finish for Oscar Piastri.
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
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