McLaren endured a challenging Friday at the 2026 F1 Monaco GP. Both Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris have admitted that the team has work to do if it is to fight at the front of the field this weekend.
Despite bringing a number of upgrades to Monaco, McLaren found itself off the pace during both of Friday’s practice sessions. On top of this, Lando Norris faced an early DNF in FP2 due to an electrical fault.
This has left the team with a lot of work to do ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying session.
Piastri’s difficult day in Monaco
Oscar Piastri described the day as difficult. Speaking following FP2, he highlighted that there wasn’t just one area in which he was struggling – it was everywhere.
“You know, when you look at the… compared to the others, it’s not really one place where we’re struggling, or one type of corner; we’re just struggling a little bit everywhere. So, yeah, a bit of a difficult day.”
McLaren arrived at the F1 Monaco GP with the biggest upgrade package on the grid. The MCL40 boasts a track-specific front suspension, improved cooling, a new rear wing, and an updated floor design. However, Piastri suggested the upgrades had not transformed the team’s performance.
“We’ve obviously got the different rear wing, but we’ve been testing the front wing. It’s been on and off both cars, so, yeah, I mean, we know the car that we’ve got, and we know that we’re a step behind Mercedes, and we know what we expected Ferrari to be very strong here based on some of their strengths and weaknesses.”
“But to be this far behind, we didn’t expect that.”
Recovering from a DNF in FP2
Lando Norris’s Friday at the Monaco GP came to a premature end after his car suffered an electrical failure, which caused him to retire from the session. The loss of track time is a significant setback at a circuit where every lap is crucial.
“Tricky day. We’re clearly off the pace and need to find time all across the lap. Frustrating to lose track time today, as that’s always important here in Monaco. The car simply turned off, so we need to investigate what happened there.”
While Norris remains determined to improve overnight, he acknowledged that fighting for the front positions may prove difficult.
“We’ll work hard overnight to try and get more performance out of the car, but realistically it’s going to be difficult to compete at the front of the field this weekend based on where we are compared to the competition. It’s not necessarily a surprise, but it’s not where we want to be, so we’ll work hard to understand what we’re missing and try to recover where we can for tomorrow.”
McLaren on the 2026 F1 Monaco GP
McLaren Chief Technical Officer and Chief Designer Rob Marshall provided further insight into the team’s upgrades. He explained that some developments were specifically designed to suit Monaco’s unique demands.
“Yes, so I guess the first is the obvious one, we’re in Monaco, and basically we need a bit more steering lock than we have at most circuits. So we’ve just got some revised suspension fairings which allow us to get a bit more steering lock at the front end. That’s basically sort of a Monaco yearly thing.
“New rear wing, centreline stuff, winglets, whatever you call them, which are kind of allowed and doable because we don’t have the straight line made actuation here.
“Yes, some details on the floor, a little bit of gain there. Nothing really big here, our big shots are coming in the last two events, really.”
He was also able to provide further insight to the issues Norris faced in FP2.
“Yes, so the car shut down, we don’t know why, it was an electrical fault of some kind. We don’t know what the root cause is, but we do know that it stopped the car. That was that.”
