McLaren reveal timeline to ‘close the gap’ to Mercedes and Ferrari with major upgrades
The reigning champions began the season on the backfoot.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believes the team’s best chance of turning around its difficult 2026 season will come with a major upgrade push either side of Formula 1’s summer shutdown.
The reigning Constructors’ champions are 154 points down on current leaders Mercedes, with a sizeable gap between them and Ferrari as well.
McLaren chief sets out upgrade timeline
Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust
Ferrari’s two wins in the last three races point towards the Scuderia cutting into the advantage Mercedes enjoyed at the start of the season, but McLaren’s zero wins and just four podiums highlight its deficit to the frontrunner.
After his drivers finished fourth and 11th at Silverstone, Stella revealed his hope that McLaren would make up serious ground around the summer shutdown, which begins after the Hungarian Grand Prix at the end of the month.
“My ideal trajectory at the moment is that we would like to close the gap with the next round of upgrades that will happen across the shutdown with something happening before and something happening after the shutdown,” he said.
“I think before, because we have kind of cleared our ideas as to which is the direction to follow in terms of aerodynamic development.
“We see now that the development is more sustained than what we had in some phases last year while defining the launch specification, but in my trajectory, I think we are going to close the gap with another step of upgrades.
“So, ideally, we will be able to deliver upgrades in the short term and upgrades in the midterm, and hopefully by then the others have not disappeared too far in front.”
As to why McLaren started on the back foot, Stella pointed towards delays during 2025.
“I think, as we understand more about the 2026 season, and we see the trend of development, and we see even some of the concepts adopted on the various cars, that’s been front wing, bodywork, general car layout, we understand that the delay was effectively generated during the development phase last year.
“We had a period in which we haven’t developed, being able to retain a certain gradient, and this is the gap of performance that we are trying now to compensate through developments and upgrades that we bring during the season.”
More news on PlanetF1.com
Ferrari confirms Lewis Hamilton findings after ‘harsh’ FIA punishment
‘Horrendous’ – Untelevised Max Verstappen team radio after troubled British GP
Stella also stressed the importance of aerodynamic development, saying it far outweighed other areas of building the car.
“The development itself, especially from an aerodynamic point of view, is at the moment the central, the pivotal element of performance development, and this is no secret.
“This is not only our car, and this is across the entire paddock, compared to the previous generation of cars.
“Let me say that there’s less attention to the mechanical setup, to the mechanical devices, or even to the grounding itself – ways to run the car close to the ground and still make this bottoming acceptable.
“I think this is at the moment [giving] much fewer performance opportunities. I know teams will be focusing on aerodynamic upgrades.”
Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.
You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!
Read next: Mohammed Ben Sulayem proposes refuelling return and independent FIA engine supply
