McLaren is preparing a late-season development push aimed at dragging its MCL40 back into the fight at the front of Formula 1, with team principal Andrea Stella confirming that a series of upgrades will be introduced in stages over the closing races of 2026.
The Woking outfit has found itself increasingly on the back foot against its leading rivals in recent events, with Max Verstappen and Red Bull particularly effective at extracting performance from their latest developments.
For reigning world champion Lando Norris, the deficit has become an increasingly physical and mental challenge behind the wheel.
Norris recently described McLaren's current machinery as the fourth-fastest car on the grid, admitting that extracting its potential was "just full on and mentally draining because of how hard you have to work behind the wheel."
Stella, however, is not treating the team's recent struggles as an unexpected setback. Instead, McLaren is preparing to fight back with a development programme designed to deliver immediate gains while also helping shape the direction of its 2027 challenger.
The upgrade battle is back in full swing
The competitive picture has shifted as rival teams have brought fresh parts to their cars, allowing the likes of Red Bull to make meaningful gains while McLaren has struggled to keep pace.
Stella believes the pattern has become a defining feature of the current campaign, with incremental improvements capable of producing significant changes in the pecking order.
"So overall I think there's no big surprises," he told reporters in Singapore.
“It was good to see that here in Singapore we are where we expected to be. I think, Verstappen and Red Bull, they are just taking advantage of the upgrades that they have delivered. And it's what we call this season the ping-pong.
"Basically people come with upgrades, even if like in the case of Mercedes I understand that they have some issues themselves.
“But when people come with upgrades they can take a little step forward. And even if here Red Bull when they were kind of dominant, but compared to us they had three tenths of a second. And three tenths of a second is a range that you can add with an upgrade."
That gap is precisely what McLaren hopes to attack during the final stretch of the season.
Three tenths of a second may not sound like a mountain to climb, but in a field where competitive margins are increasingly tight, a successful development package can make the difference between fighting in the midfield and challenging for silverware.
Red Bull's progress has underlined the importance of getting those decisions right. McLaren now needs its own upgrades to translate into genuine lap time rather than simply narrowing the deficit on paper.
A late-season push with 2027 in mind
Stella confirmed that McLaren's development work will continue, although the team is not expecting to introduce everything in one hit.
Instead, the new components will arrive in phases, with the ultimate impact on its race-winning prospects likely to become clearer towards the end of the campaign.
"We do plan to deliver some upgrades," he confirmed.
“We hope that they will be able to fill this gap that we have to the best cars and put McLaren in condition to fight for podiums on merit. And then whether we can fight for the victory this, I think we will have to see probably the last three races, because this the upgrades will be delivered in phases.
"It's important for us that we deliver upgrades because we are in a close fight for a championship position.
“We also want to prove some of the fundamental concepts that we'll carry into next year's car because at this level of maturity of the cars you are starting to push the aerodynamic development and you may start to see that things work.
"But some things may not work because aerodynamics is starting to get complicated enough after, what it's basically two years of development if we consider that the development started the 2 January 2025 and now we are well into 2026. So after two years now it's complex.
"It may go right, it may go wrong. So we wanted to track test some of the fundamentals we carry into next year. And I think this is quite convenient because Red Bull pretty much they are on par with us in terms of point and they are ahead in terms of competitive and we wanted to set a quest to Ferrari in the championship."
Read also: Norris owns up, admits Sprint clash was 'my mistake'The strategy therefore serves two purposes. McLaren wants to recover enough performance to restore its credentials as a genuine podium contender, while using the remaining races to validate aerodynamic ideas that could prove crucial for next season.
McLaren has demonstrated in the past that it can turn effective upgrades into substantial competitive progress.
Whether its upcoming updates can produce the same effect remains to be seen, but the closing rounds will offer an important test of both its immediate recovery plans and the aerodynamic foundations of its next car.
For Stella, the objective is clear: make the most of the remaining opportunities in 2026 without compromising the lessons McLaren needs to carry into 2027.
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