McLaren pair Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were left disappointed after both drivers record a non-start at the 2026 F1 Chinese GP due to separate power unit related issues.
It all ended for the McLaren duo, even before it started at the 2026 F1 Chinese GP. While Norris was unable to even complete his reconnaissance lap, Piastri managed to finish his before he was pushed back into the garage just before the start of the formation lap.
Separate electrical issue found by McLaren for Norris, Piastri
McLaren found an electrical issue on Norris’s car at the time of race preparation. Piastri, meanwhile, safely made it to the grid to start the F1 Chinese GP. But the moment the team started the car, they found a separate electrical issue and was soon pushed back in.
Despite the extensive work put in by the mechanics in collaboration with Mercedes HPP personnel, they couldn’t resolve either of the issues on time, resulting in a double DNS for McLaren at the 2026 F1 Chinese GP. “I don’t know how long it’s been going on for, honestly,” said Norris to media in China.
“Sometimes it’s better just to leave them to crack on and things. But I found out probably 20 minutes before I was meant to go out of the garage. But I think they’ve been working at things for a little while already. Some electrical issue with the power unit and therefore can’t even start it.
First DNS for Norris in F1
“So, a shame, my first non-start in F1, which is sad. And even worse, that it’s a double non-start with Oscar as well. Not the best day for us,” Norris summed up, after his first non-start in his eight-year F1 career. It was incredibly disappointing as the Brit alluded to the complexity.
It seemed like a new issue that they encountered. Norris sat in the car in the hope of a fix or a red flag might give the team more time, but it never came. “I’m just disappointed, that’s all,” he continued.
“Disappointed I didn’t get to go and do my job today. I’m frustrated for the whole team, it’s not just me. All of the mechanics, everyone puts a lot of work into things. And it’s just a complicated bit of kit. There’s a lot of new things and of course some new issues that we’re still finding out at times.
Norris waited in car with hope
“For everyone in the garage, they’re disappointed. We couldn’t get the car out on track today. They’ll work hard to try and fix it. They were trying to, so we never knew. We even stayed in for our first couple of laps, just in case there was a red or something. Luck turned our way, but it didn’t.
“It was just, we’d rather be ready to go in case something magically appeared and started working. But not today,” summed up Norris. Despite the troubles, there were positives that the Brit and McLaren could take from the first sprint weekend of 2026, having at least managed to run some racing laps.
Learning weekend still for McLaren
“I think it’s still been a weekend where we’ve learned a lot,” said Norris. “I think already since last weekend we’ve learned some things. It’s also a weekend where we clarified we need to do a better job with understanding the power unit still and make some changes.
“We also understand the car is not to the level that it needs to be to fight for a podium or even a win at the time being. We know we have a lot of work ahead disregarding the issues that we’ve had. The team knows where we stand and they’re very realistic about everything.
“They’re all working hard, they’ve been working hard the whole season. But especially now they know what direction we need to work in, in order to get back to what we think we can achieve,” summed up Norris, who is keeping faith and hope on the team.
Faith, confidence on McLaren
McLaren has seen bad years in the past but has ultimately managed to turn things around. He knows they have a lot of work to do, but he feels it is not impossible for the F1 team. The confidence is still there, although he admits it would have been better to come away with a strong result.
“Absolutely, every year is different, so it’s never a guarantee,” stated Norris. “I have a lot of hope and a lot of faith in the team that we can turn things around from where we are. It’s still a very long season. Of course we’ve got after Japan a good little break coming up.
“That’s probably a good thing for us to try and figure out things. And it gives us a bit more time to maybe develop some things to see if we can get on the car earlier. As much as it’s not a start of the year we want. I think I have a lot of confidence in the team.
If possible, they wish to be happier
“We can still improve things and we can fight for podiums at some point this year. And we can fight for wins maybe later in the season. And I want to believe that. It’s a tough start but I have faith. I just have to be hopeful. That’s it. Could I be happier? Could I be enjoying it more? Yup.
“Could we both be much happier if the car was performing better and we didn’t have some issues? Of course. But it’s not like we’re not this familiar with the situation of being a bit behind and having to catch up. It’s where we were a few years ago.
“That’s life. We are where we are. We both have to work together in getting the team back to the top,” said Norris, whose title defence has not started well. Just as the Brit was finishing his chat with media, McLaren F1 teammate Piastri arrived in the media pen with his share of disappointment.
Consecutive DNS for Piastri
The Australian is yet to complete a racing lap in 2026. He has completed the only sprint race in China, but he hasn’t done any lap in full distance after his reconnaissance lap crash in Australia. Piastri was hopeful of the start in China, but it just wasn’t to be.
“No, we’re fine on the way to the grid,” Piastri said to media. “I think similar…analytical issues with power units, which I think was the same for Lando, but it’s not the same electrical issue. So, yeah, that is obviously disappointing, but it is what it is.
“It’s been a while since I watched two Grand Prixs on TV. Obviously, it’s a bit different. Last week was pretty rough to take. This one is…these kind of things happen in racing at times, and especially at the beginning of a new regulation. It’s probably not a huge surprise. It’s just a shame that it’s happened to both cars.”
Better optimisation of PU by McLaren
Much like Norris, the Australian too saw the positive side of the weekend. He feels the team did a better job of optimising the power unit in China. “I think it’s been encouraging from some angles,” continued Piastri.
“We’ve done a better job of optimising the power unit. I think we’ve got more out of that side of things, but I think the gap has reduced a little bit, but it’s still big. So I think we’ve also understood some areas. We’ve also understood we’ve got a lot of work to do still in others.”
Gap reduced but deficit cannot vanish
He can see the gap has reduced, but he knows that all of the deficit cannot vanish in one go. Piastri feels McLaren to be in no-man’s land, with the gap in front to Mercedes and Ferrari, and a gap behind to Red Bull and midfield F1 teams.
“I think hopefully we can get a bit closer, but I would be surprised if we can make up all the deficit,” said Piastri. “I think this weekend’s been pretty representative of where we’ve been. We’ve been in no-man’s land as third quickest, so hopefully we can close the gap.”
Complex power unit
The Australian reiterated the complexity of the rules relating to power unit. It is so complex that if the team changes one bit, it creates an unintended consequence somewhere else. He reckons that even if they want to do things differently, they can’t at times, since it is not programmed in.
“I think they’re just incredibly complex, and there’s so many rules on the power units that you sometimes change one thing, and it has a very unintended consequence somewhere else,” explained Piastri. “In a circuit like this, it’s very harvest-rich.
“So you don’t really have a problem with super-clipping or needing to lift at coast, but you’ve got other problems because you can’t harvest as much as you want everywhere, and there’s nothing you can do about that as a driver. So I think we’re kind of learning.
“The difficult part is even sometimes if we know there’s something that we want to do differently, we can’t do anything because it has to be programmed in or it has to be a code change, so it’s complex,” summed up Piastri.
Collective effort by McLaren to get Norris, Piastri start
McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella highlighted that they changed nothing on cars of Norris and Piastri post F1 Chinese GP qualifying. The problem happened out of nowhere and despite the collective efforts, they couldn’t get it sorted for either of Norris and Piastri cars.
“A Formula 1 race weekend is built from the effort and energy of many team members, both trackside and in Woking at the factory, not to mention our technical and commercial partners alongside the incredible McLaren Mastercard fans who invest in getting up early or staying up late to support us,” said Stella.
“We are here to go racing, and today we were not in condition to do so because of separate electrical problems on both power units, which is extremely frustrating and disappointing for the team, the drivers, our technical and commercial partners, and of course our fans.
Apology to fans
“We are sorry for that and will make sure we bounce back as one team in Suzuka. Nothing had changed between Saturday’s Qualifying and the fire-up in the garage pre-race, but as we prepared Lando’s car to leave the garage an electrical problem was discovered on the power unit.
“We tried to fix it alongside our partners at Mercedes HPP, but there was no way to do so which resulted in the first prevention of a Formula 1 Grand Prix start in his career. Then on the grid we found another electrical issue on Oscar’s power unit which couldn’t be resolved, resulting the car being required to return to the garage for further investigation.
Investigation on
“They look to be separate electrical faults on the power unit occurring at the same time, an extremely unfortunate coincidence which meant there was simply no way to start the race with either car this afternoon. We’ll investigate together alongside our partners at HPP to understand what happened.
“We move forward as one team both trackside and in Woking with our partners at HPP. We’ll learn from today together and make sure it doesn’t happen again before coming back stronger for the next race in Japan,” summed up Stella.
